


The HogShagMan

by tigersilver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Condoms, Current and Historical Shagging, Discussing Shagging, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Head Auror Ron Weasley, Healer Draco Malfoy, Intrigue, M/M, Magical Meta, Magical Sexual Relations Class, Peevish Minerva McGonagall, Petty Evil People, Professor Harry Potter, Romance, Shagging, The Threat of Teenage Teddy Lupin, Wizarding Pre-History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26229208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: Professor Potter is called upon to teach the first-ever official course on Magical Sexual Relations at Hogwarts and, in the process, must navigate the pitfalls of relationship-building, the nefarious schemings of those entrusted with school funding, and the uneven tempers of his boss and several co-workers. Clearly, only ‘the’ Harry Potter can pull it all off.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 26
Kudos: 45
Collections: 2020 Harry/Draco Sex Fair





	1. Friday Afternoon, Early January, 2010, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erebeus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erebeus/gifts), [phoenixacid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixacid/gifts), [lonerofthepack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/gifts).



> For Prompt #[28](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_5f6f0xUXhqtWfMlhXRyA8kDC3KGShN3oa_IOD12DY/edit#).
> 
> <3<3<3  
> This was the prompt:  
> Sex Theme: Safe Sex Education Profession at Hogwarts  
> Era: Hogwarts EWE or whatever you like really  
> Additions: Humor, disgruntled Minerva McGonagall, professors in love  
> Scenario: "It's raining condoms." Phoenixacid suggested condoms raining in the great hall whenever someone gets a question right. Either Harry or Draco throwing condoms at kids randomly and taking their job to educate the kids very enthusiastically. Anything you want, just make it rain condoms lol.
> 
> There is LOL and there are condoms, raining mightily. That I promise you, dear Prompter. Plus a little more than that. I do hope the sticker lovers forgive me.
> 
> Beta'd by the frabjous Lonerofthepack, as always.

"Are you going to wear _that_? All through?" Harry eyed Draco’s outfit doubtfully. The man stood framed in the doorway to Harry’s office, and quite dramatically. "It’s very. Um." 

"Of course I am," Draco replied, adjusting the regulation safety goggles resting upon his high, pale brow. He wrinkled it beneath them, giving Harry a speaking look as he entered, shutting the door smartly behind him. "Why ever not?" 

"Well." 

Harry hesitated. He truly appreciated the assistance and he intended to keep telling himself this through the entire stint his beloved was able to spare assisting him whilst on post-holiday leave from St Mungo’s, but. 

"It’s a bit...off-putting. What I mean is, if I were your average Seventh Year and I saw you come into my first-ever official lecture on shagging wearing _that_ , love, I do believe I would be put right off. Perhaps entirely. You look so...so terribly medical." 

"Huh." Draco appeared grandly unimpressed. 

"You do, though." 

"What of it, Harry? This," Draco said, indicating his brilliantly green robe, his thick-lensed safety specs and the bristling array of his working medic’s wands holster with an elegant flap of hand, "is what is worn, dear one, when discussing such intimate things--such as ‘shagging’ and ‘bits’--and how they function physiologically when one is a Healer consulting with one’s clients in a hospital setting. I see no issue." 

"Um." Harry swallowed, briefly closing his eyes to the eye-bending lime green glow the hospital tunic gave off. _He_ was accustomed, certainly, but his students likely all weren’t. "Right. Well, okay then. Point. So. As a Healer, what did you have in mind, exactly, for my lectures?" 

He turned away from the narrow slit of the tower window, where he’d been idly gazing out on the Pitch as he’d awaited Draco’s arrival and crossed the room, a fondly concerned frown creasing the faint silvery scar on his brow. 

"Sit down, do. Er...I’m assuming, ah, the specific body parts?" he added uncertainly, waving a hand. "Specifically, those ‘bits’ you mentioned? Penises, vaginas, er, etcetera?" 

"Naturally," Draco replied casually, helping himself to a seat in Harry’s better visitor’s chair and leaving Harry the uncomfortable option of either plonking himself down behind his desk opposite Draco like some sort of overbearing ninny or taking the less-better chair available beside him and being cozy. "Particularly the ‘etcetera’, Harry. Leaving nothing out, I assure you."

"Oh."

Harry dithered uncomfortably, glancing between the two options; Draco raised an eyebrow at him. 

"Ah? Something amiss, love?" 

"Oh no!"

Harry abruptly took the chair next to Draco, scooching it closer. He smiled gamely. 

"Not at all, not a bit. You were saying, just now? Your intended plan of curriculum, I think. Merlin knows I could use the help. I’m glad you’ve come, Draco. And brought your plan." 

Harry rather hoped he was expressing sufficiently energetic encouragement. 

After all, Draco hadn’t needed to go out of his way to come down to Hogwarts and help Harry teach the older students the first-ever officially sanctioned instructional course on shagging--er, ‘Magical Sexual Relations’, as McGonagall termed it--but he had volunteered himself instantly as soon as he’d learnt of Harry’s newest assigned responsibility as a younger, as-yet-untenured assistant professor. And Harry was in sore need of professional help, and no quibbling about it. 

"Oh, that." Draco grinned slyly, smoothing out a seam on his sleeve. "Relax, I’ve attended to every detail, no fear. Your students will receive a most thorough education, Harry. Headmistress will be ecstatic, I’m sure." 

"Urgh." Harry blinked rapidly, considering this statement. "When you say ‘thorough’, darling, precisely how ‘thorough’ do you mean? Not physical demonstrations, I should hope! I’m not showing them pornos." 

"Don’t be silly, Potter. They’re up to enough on their own, having their ends away, no doubt. Seventeen, most of them. Likely watch more pornos than we do." 

Draco inhaled sharply through his still-sharp nose, eyes narrowing suspiciously. The nose Harry found very attractive most days, and the nose he looked on the verge of glaring down at any moment, at the slightest provocation. The nose which was very often in the midst of Harry’s business. 

"Oh," he said flatly, scowling. "Were you making fun?" 

"Not at all, not at all," Harry hastened to assure him, taking up Draco’s hand and pressing a little kiss on his chapped knuckles in emphasis. "I’m happy you’re here. I’m just--well. I suppose I’m a bit tense, Draco."

"Are you?" 

"Yes!" Harry huffed, sitting back against the chair with thump and crossing his arms over his chest. "You know we never had anything like this, not when we were students, and I’ve found very little in the records as to any prior instruction ever being provided here, at Hogwarts. McGonagall alludes now and again to little professorial talks being given back in the Twenties and Thirties but there’s nothing to back that up in _Hogwarts: A History_ ; it’s all hearsay."

"Hmmm," Draco nodded, motioning for Harry to go on. 

Harry sighed heavily, uncrossing his arms so he could twist his fingers together anxiously. 

"Well. I’ve had to write to the Beauxbatons faculty to ask them for help, it’s so very thin of resources and references in the library, alright? Pince runs every time she sees me coming, I swear. And McGonagall brushes me off whenever I ask her questions about her time as a student and how this subject was even broached to them, back in the day. If it even really was!" he scoffed. "Which I rather highly doubt." 

"Now, Harry, she’s hardly likely to be fibbing," Draco said, shaking his pale head and joggling about his goggles. "Though possibly being a bit creative with the truth of it. She is a Scotswoman." 

"Of course she’s not fibbing!" Harry protested vehemently. "It’s more what she’s willing to tell me about it--and that appears to be next to nothing! But I do know Sexual Relations’ certainly not been taught in well over fifty years, not here. Not as a formal course offering. All that blood purity shit and the previous Governor’s Board denouncing it back in the Seventies as ‘too crude and common’ to be addressed at a proper boarding school! Voldemort’s fault, of course. Like most things, right? Possibly Dumbledore’s as well; I don’t know." 

"Yes, yes, Harry; absolutely. And I do know, believe me." Draco agreed hastily. "The negative consequences of that lack." 

He casually laid a hand upon a suspiciously large stack of bound parchment sitting innocently upon the cushion next to him, giving it a fond pat. 

"It’s woeful, the lack of proper instruction, which is likely why we see so many incidents in, say, Spell Damage, for example." He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Harry’s downcast expression. "But that’s exactly why I’m here, isn’t it? To lend you a hand, a little leg up on how to speak the vernacular of common-garden variety shagging to an underage audience. I told you you’d need me, didn’t I? Literally the moment I heard." 

"You did." Harry recalled that moment of stunned hilarity and had to grin. "It was a hoot, actually. I remember falling about laughing with Ron--oh, don’t look like that. I don’t mean it _that_ way, Draco. It was more the spag bol spewing through Ron’s nose, really." 

"Really." 

"Yes, really," Harry said, nodding and chuckling. The faint grin slid off his face in the very next moment. "‘Course I wasn't realizing exactly how serious this was, back then." He shuddered. "I guess I’m still in the process of truly taking it in, what? Because it leaves me damn nervous, Draco. This is going to be a very tricky proposition for me, lecturing about sex to bloody teenagers. Frightening, frankly." 

"Pish-tosh, nothing to it, really," Draco said, tutting softly. "You’ll be fine, Harry." 

He brushed away the hank of hair that fell artfully over one eye and casually adjusted the strap on those damned Healer’s exam goggles he was wearing as he was doing it, the very picture of a man at ease with himself and the universe. A steady man, with a solid grip on the complexity of the--ah--’magical body’. 

"You're sure?" Harry tried to keep the worst of the doubt from leaking into his voice but didn’t feel very successful doing so. He looked to his sleek and self-assured volunteer helper hopefully. "Draco?" 

"Very." He smiled at Harry. A warm, reassuring smile, one that managed to somehow make Harry feel a mite better about it all despite himself. "You will be, Harry. I promise." 

"Well…" 

"No, really. You’ll grow used to it soon enough, never fear. I was only nervous the first few times I had to speak of it and then I very soon got past that. Just a little exposure needed, that’s all. Practise, darling. Plus, they’re not actually all that difficult to talk to, you know? Teenagers. Very interested audience, quite attentive. Or at least so as I’ve found."

"Oh. Well…true enough, I suppose." Harry slumped sideways and gave into the growing urge to lay his head up against Draco’s shoulder. "But. That’s the other thing. It’s not just ‘teenagers’, Draco. It’s also Teddy. Remember?" 

Silence greeted his reminder. A considering silence, and Draco suddenly had that pinched look about him, the one he got when there was a truly difficult case: strained, keen, anxious and yet also eager to get on with it. 

"Ah," Draco said reflectively, blinking slowly off into the distance and straightening his already incredibly correct posture. "So." 

"Exactly, love." Harry bobbed his chin. "Er...so?" 

Truly, Harry wasn't certain that his beloved really recalled from day to day that wee little Teddy was quite nearly the teenager himself. Draco had been mostly absent during Teddy’s infancy, being away in France, and then occupied with a series of gruelling rotations as a new resident at St Mungos until just recently but in the meanwhile, time had not stopped ticking away. 

In but three short months, April, or right about the time Harry would be taking on the second lot of students in need of instruction on SR, the Fourths and Fifths, and also be compelled to fly solo as to their actual instruction, their small Teddy, their sweet innocent baby boy, would be attaining the grand old age of thirteen and would be bloody well in attendance of those lectures. 

Knowing Teddy as Harry knew Teddy, the boy would set up camp front and center of Harry’s lectern and drive everyone mad with incessant questions. Brutally forthright ones. He was not a Ravenclaw for nothing. 

"So. Right. _Merlin_ , Harry."

"Oh my." Harry mouthed, shuddering gently, sighing in time to Draco’s sudden sharp inhale. A bracing arm came round him instantly and gave him a hearty squeeze. "It slipped your mind, didn’t it?" 

"No! That," Draco stated, bridling. "Was _always_ a paramount consideration." In a firmish, sharp tone, nearly marshal. His nostrils flared; Harry got a good sideways view, nearly straight up them. "No fear, Potter. Don’t be losing your nerve now; it’s all here, right in my plan." He gave the parchment sheaf by his hip a sharp, proud tap with a perfectly manicured forefinger. "Leagues ahead of you. Got it covered, trust me on that. Chin up, now!" 

"I hope you do," Harry mumbled, enjoying the embrace. "Mmmm..."

He rubbed his aching forehead against Draco’s robe’s collar, nuzzling into the warm hollow of smooth lean throat beneath it. The rubbery straps of the goggles were only a little bit irritating. 

"Because I’m fucking boggled."

"Don’t be," Draco said simply, bending his head down to give Harry a peck on the cheek. "You’ve nothing to fret about. Except for that aching head you’re not really managing to hide from me so very well, Professor," he chided. "I daresay you’ve not slept well this last week; I know _I’ve_ not. I do believe a lie-down is in order." 

"Do you?" Harry pulled back far enough to peer at the concerned face bearing down upon his own. "Hmmm. I rather think you’re quite correct, Healer. A little lie-down--with my personal medic in attendance, of course--sounds just the thing." 

"Just so."

Harry grinned, his mood brightening. Draco matched it instantly, a flash of white teeth tinged with the predatory that Harry always found most intriguing. The man was a dedicated lover and fiercely so, sometimes. Harry liked that aspect rather a lot!

"So? Shall we?" Harry asked, extricating himself gently and rising to his feet, anticipation heady in his bloodstream. "Nothing like the present, right?" 

He gave Draco a hand up, sending the hefty and rather daunting lesson plan wafting over to his desk blotter with a flick of his wand. 

"Besides." He gave it a wary look before turning away, extending a hand to his beloved. "I believe this may require an examination, a very thorough one. I should like the privacy of my chambers for that, I think. Can’t have Headmistress threatening to write me up again for, er, how exactly did she put it last time?" 

"‘Unseemly faffing about in your office,’ as I recall," Draco chuckled, following after Harry quite willingly. "And ‘willful mayhem involving Hogwarts property’. A nice turn of phrase, really." 

He cast his goggles aside on the little table Harry kept near his office door, as a convenient spot for his students to leave their reports and retrieve any misplaced items. 

"Which was very politic of her, actually, considering what we were really doing," Draco remarked idly. ‘Faffing’ is a very broad euphemism. As is ‘mayhem’."

"Oh yes, definitely. You know, I do so love that woman," Harry nodded, giving his office one last glance ‘round to make certain all was right and tight before locking it. He took up Draco’s hand again. "She’s a national treasure. And absolutely a better boss than ever Dawlish was."

"She is," Draco agreed, as they made their way down the corridor toward the tower where several of the younger professors were housed. "Dawlish is a champion twat, Harry; admit it. Best career move you’ve made in ages, I think, taking up this position, even untenured. Despite the constant floo travel back-and-forth to Town. I know it makes you nauseous." 

"Oh, agreed." Harry laughed ruefully. "Speaking of nausea, it also means _I_ have to be the one to tell our Teddy about the birds and the bees--"

"Um, the Centaurs and Veelas, more like," Draco interrupted kindly, keeping up easily with Harry’s shorter strides. "Or the Metamorphmagi and the Merpeople, perhaps," he mused. "Hmm, but you know, let’s not forget the tenticulas and oliphants, Harry. Most important, those. Not that they’re relevant in _your_ course, especially. Professor Hagrid will have them covered, I’m sure." 

"Whatever!" Harry shrugged that off with a roll of the eyes as they began the climb up the moving staircases, still hand in hand. "It still means I have to have that little chat with Ted a lot sooner than I ever expected, alright? Ugh. Bleagh. Not looking forward. He’s a baby yet."

"Well," Draco replied cheerily as they reached their level. "You shan’t be alone for a while yet, at least, Harry. And it’s certainly not the worst thing you’ve ever had to look forward to, now is it? Buck up, love." 

He paused as Harry gave the password to the portrait of the late Prunaprismia Landgaskett, a noted 15th c. Wizarding botanist and one-time Hogwarts Professor. 

"Er, ‘Voynich’, ma’am. Oh, thank you." 

"Enough of that, though. Come along to bed now," he continued, following Harry inside and carelessly casting his Healer’s robes upon the settee in passing with the air of a man who knew his host’s living quarters just as well as his very own and was therefore completely at ease in them. "You’re well past due for that ‘thorough exam’ you spoke of. Ready?" 

"Ready!" Harry said breathlessly as he was tugged through the vestibule and into his bedroom. Their bedroom, really, as Draco was more nights than not down at Hogwarts the months Harry was teaching. He began shedding his robes and whatnot as fast as he could, following Draco’s progress in stripping down with avid eyes. "Er, um. And what, pray tell, might I expect from you, Healer?" 

"Oh, I was thinking a little," Draco paused in his progress, cocking his chin and deftly drawing Harry into his arms. "Of this." 

He spun them about, landing carefully against the wall, propping Harry’s spine and gazed down thoughtfully at his captured patient. 

"And that. A little Sympathetic Magic, to start. Here." He pressed a kiss against Harry’s one temple, where the slight throb of his pulse showed. "And then here too, love." Another, and Harry felt the tingle of healing magic spread cool and clean through his skin and scalp. "And then perhaps we avail ourselves of this fine bed and I could properly snog the rest of you? That's particularly beneficial for the nerves, Professor. I’ve seen good results, always. Remember?" 

"Hmm, I do," Harry moaned, relaxing bonelessly and setting his arms loosely about Draco’s waist. "You’re a champion at that. Never, ever stop." 

"Shan’t," Draco replied promptly, having gone back to applying the lightest of kisses around and about Harry’s brow and cheekbones, drifting down his jaw teasingly but never fully landing on Harry’s lips, the git. "This is a treatment--um, you’re delicious--best applied often, Mr Potter. Quite efficacious. Would you care to recline? For ease of exam purposes, of course."

He smirked. 

"Rather," Harry nodded eagerly, loving it. He pried himself out of Draco’s clinging hands regretfully and got about the business of shedding the last of his clothes with indecent haste, clambering across the mattress as soon as his shoes were shed. "Fuck, but this is a treat. I missed you, this morning. Been thinking about you all day." 

"Ah, me too." 

Draco followed after him, a casual wave of his wand sending his trousers, silk socks and shirt neatly folding themselves up behind him in the hamper tucked away by the built-in wardrobe, his shoes arranging themselves under the bed frame. 

"You know, I’ve been thinking about that cock of yours, Harry, and how I’ve not tasted it, not in the last forty-eight hours at least. Far too long a time, if you ask me. Criminal." 

"That!" Harry exclaimed, flopping back invitingly across the bolsters strewn atop his rather large bed. "Yes! What you said." 

The Elves had quite kindly arranged his rooms as a suite for two, once McGonagall had realized Draco was a permanent fixture in Harry's life. Consequently all the furnishings and room sizes had adjusted accordingly and his suite now boasted the largest of any of the loos in the tower plus an entire room given over to Draco’s travelling library and potions equipment. 

"It’s maddening, you know," Draco went on, frowning down at Harry’s hardening nipples. "Working flat out when I know you’re at home, missing me." 

"I always miss you when I don’t see you but I do hate your night shifts especially, love." Harry wrinkled his nose at the thought of them, grimacing. "Too many of them and too often in a row. But of course you can’t do anything about that." He shook his head. "Never mind that now, though. Come here?" 

"Mmm, no, sorry," Draco shook his head, advancing up the bed and taking up Harry’s beckoning hand. He kissed his knuckles gallantly. "Not for another few years, at least. We’re still disastrously short on emergency Healers in SD. But you’re right--enough talk of work. We’ve better things to do."

He straddled Harry’s legs, shoving the duvet down the bed, and eyed the half-hard prick Harry sported with a salaciously proprietary gaze. 

"You’re delicious, you know? May I begin just here?" he asked, smoothing the palm of his hand over Harry’s cock slit. "A proper suck will do you wonders, sir, I assure you." 

"Oh, do." Harry closed his eyes and lay back, surrendering to the honest to Merlin exquisite feel of a hot loving mouth and a very talented tongue, lapping about his bollocks and then up and down the length of his prick. "Fuck, but that’s brilliant." 

Draco smiled around him; Harry could feel the muscles of his cheeks flexing before they closed in, making a little guttural grunt of agreement. He kept on, going slow to begin with and then building up, pressure and tension as Harry’s cock swelled and his balls drew up and rounded firm like small melons. Saliva dripped down, warm and wet and seeping down the shrubby hairs curling about Harry's genitals, taunting his crack and arsehole with a hint of more good things to come. 

But only after he came, of course, which Harry did do pretty well promptly, shouting ‘Oh, fuck!’ muffled against his forearm and ending up gasping and wide-eyed, staring blankly at his canopy.

"Bloody hell, Draco," he breathed out after a moment, weakly bringing his hand to rest in the sweat-soaked tendrils of his lover’s hair. "Thought I was going to die there, for a second." 

"Hmm. It was good, then," Draco concluded, swarming up Harry’s torso and coming to rest beside him. "Take your time, love. Breathe in and then out." 

"Wanker!" Harry burst into startled laughter. "As if I’ve forgotten." 

"You did. I do have that effect, Harry," Draco informed him, maintaining the absolute most serious of expressions despite a giveaway lip-twitch. "As you have sometimes mentioned. Alright there? Really?" 

He leant down and pressed his ear against the subsiding thunder of Harry’s racing heart, listening intently to the reassuring thrum. 

"Hmm, sounds alright. You’ll do." 

"Very," Harry said, shifting so he was able to snug himself more closely into the arms enfolding him. "Much so." 

"Me, as well," Draco smiled, going back to his snuggling of Harry with a will. "Mmmm, yes. Your face, when I do that. Exquisite." 

Harry fell silent, listening to the reassuring beat of the heart next to his own, and thought over what his lovely smarmy cocksucker might like best. 

"Um. Would you like that, the same?" he asked. "Or do you want to come in me? Because I’m up for either, love." 

"Ahhhh." 

Draco blinked slowly, one hand drifting down to clasp at his own dick, which he fell into caressing. 

"Let me consider."

"Okay." 

Harry watched him do it; it was oddly mesmerizing, even as familiar as he was with that appendage. Draco’s dick was a thing of beauty, longish and slender, but also never too much for Harry to take. 

"No. Actually not." 

He stuck his own fingers down there, inserting them in the mix, glancing up when Draco inhaled, tensing. 

"Hang on. Changed my mind; let me help. And how _do_ you want it, Malfoy?" he asked again, a little more demanding this time, knocking aside Draco’s hand to take control of that cock, using short, hard pumping motions to work it into a full fatness. "This looks, hmm. Think it would do the trick. Could quite fancy this up my bum right now, you know. How would that work for you? Could you bear it?" 

"Gah!" Draco shut his eyes for a second, grimacing, and then rolled Harry over to his front in a motion both speedy and practised. "Fuck yes, please, Harry. I want in you; I want in you so bloody much. Let me get you open-- _let me_." 

He’d his mouth on Harry’s arse crack without awaiting a reply, shifting about to let Harry hastily arrange himself, and then shoving a convenient cushion beneath Harry’s hips when he had. 

Harry squirmed and gritted his teeth, enjoying it immensely. It was always just on the edge, teetering between ‘never enough’ and ‘too much’ and Draco was a past master at somehow knowing exactly when he should stop with that wicked tongue of his and move to using fingers and lube. 

"Merlin--fuck--Christ! Draco?!" Harry groaned, reaching that shattering moment just as Draco’s forefinger replaced his tongue and plunged into him. "Oh yes--oh yesss! Yes, that--do it!" 

It was both fast and slow, a liquid time passing, and Draco made little grunting noises, his knees tightening about Harry’s upper thighs, his other hand gripping closely at Harry’s one hip, keeping them both drawn up high on the bolster. One finger became two, and more lube was summoned, and then three, in and out in staccato. Draco’s mutterings got louder, asking Harry if he liked it, if he wanted more and harder, and Harry begged wordlessly for all of that--yes, please!--with the shift of his spine and the eager rise of his bum. 

"Oh, gawd, oh fuck--you ready, Harry?" 

Barely waiting on Harry’s fervent nod, the length of that rigid cock of his slid in one smooth plunging sweep, a shaft of pure bliss as the knob end budged up against the little bundle of nerves Draco had advised Harry quite some time prior was his ‘prostate’. 

But Harry wasn’t thinking of his prostate--he was bloody feeling it! And it felt superb, as did all of it, the hot damp and the wriggling-plunge-pound of Draco’s pelvis against his quivering arse. 

"You’re so--I can’t--fucking give it, Harry," Draco implored, curling down over Harry’s back and thrusting as if the world would end if he didn’t. "Give me, give me, come on, come! Ahhhh!" 

The sensation of faint slosh, of quavery blancmange shaky muscles, starved of oxygen but engorged with sheer unadulterated pleasure, it all rendered Harry mostly incoherent, as it nearly always did. Though his swimmy brain dredged up the fleeting thought that he and Draco, at least, were damned well extremely qualified to speak of Magical Sexual Relations in a brilliantly positive manner, if maybe not in full-on, blunt-edge detail! 

He said as much, when Draco had regained his own breath a few minutes later and they lay drowsing, Scourgify-clean and the duvet drawn up again over them. 

"Oh." Draco wrinkled his pale brow, his hair every which way in a charmingly rakish fashion, and looked struck by the notion. "Um, er. Honestly, Harry? I don’t necessarily think that. I mean, we've got us pretty much sorted, yes, no doubt of that. But…"

"But?" Harry prompted, not sure if he should be offended or no. He frowned. "But what? I think we happen to be pretty brilliant at this. I’ve no complaints, at least. Do you?"

"Of course not!" Draco seemed reassuringly shocked by the very idea. "No, no, it’s not _that_ to which I’m referring. It’s more--oh, how shall I say this without--"

"Annoying me?" Harry suggested snarkily. "Maybe just crack on with the saying of it, Malfoy. Before you do, in fact. Alright?" 

"Merlin." 

Draco sighed, a great huffing heave and flailed elegantly about the bed. He rearranged himself and Harry so that they were eye-to-eye and nearly nose-to-nose. Somewhere in the flurry he’d assumed his Healer’s mien; Harry sighed too, silently, and resigned himself to some species of medical lecture. He hardly ever regretted asking Draco questions but sometimes the answers he got only seemed to inspire more questions. 

"Well? Go on, then." 

"Right. You see," Draco began, as matter-of-factly as one could be, having just had a fab shag with the other person, "the thing is, you were raised Muggle, love. No fault of your own, naturally--oh stop, Potter; that’s not necessary, the glaring. What I am trying to express, darling dearest idjit, is that you’ve never been exposed to some crucial information most Wizarding parents or guardians pass on to their children, have you? Because how could you, right? Again, not your fault, but also a topic I think maybe we need to explore a bit further, alright?"

"You mean about shagging?" Harry asked curiously, diverted. He glanced down at the two of them, entangled together and still dewed with perspiration and faint smears of drying come. "In general, or specifically? Because I was only eleven when I came here, you know. Hardly the age when even Muggles are taught about shagging!" 

"No, of course not; don’t be silly," Draco said instantly. "But Wizarding children learn from a very early age about how they came to be. It’s part of our life, being Magical. I don’t believe Muggles really regard sex or reproduction in the same manner as we do. They are far more casual. Or the utter opposite, sometimes, but it’s not the same view at all, in any case. I would call it cultural but that’s not quite right either. It’s more...well, it’s more a genetic thing, if you want to put it in Muggle science terms. We Wizards are all very much aware of that, the anomaly--or what Muggles would simplistically term the mutation that makes us Magical and them not. It’s not, but that’s the closest I can come, Harry, without getting into the truly arcane aspects of it. Still, our families make it a priority to inform us, and that all begins quite early. Muggles mainly concern themselves with surnames and possessions and places of origin; we concern ourselves with the magic of being brought into existence. It’s very, very different, Harry."

"You don’t say." Harry cocked a wary eyebrow. "Well, hmm. Alright, that’s fair," he agreed after a long moment of enduring Draco’s concerned stare. "You know, I wouldn’t have known a lot of things about Wizards, really, if it weren’t for Hermione. I mean, she’s Muggleborn, of course, and she’s bloody inquisitive as well as being smart as houses, so everything she took it upon herself to learn about she then attempted to try on me. Some of it stuck but some didn’t."

"A good thing, I think," Draco smiled. "You’ve been lucky, you know. In your best mates." 

"I’ve been lucky, period, " Harry smiled. "Both in my mates and with you, and don’t think I don’t realize it. Anyway, she’s always been there, sort of lending her knowledge, if you know what I mean? But I know there’s gaps. There’s always been those, Draco. There’s been things I’d’ve done quite differently if I’d had the slightest idea what all was happening beneath the surface. You, for example." 

"Me?" Draco snorted. "Oh no. That tide that was already flowing out, Harry, and fated to do so. We could no more have stopped it than we can stop the currents in the Thames. Some things were meant, I swear it. And that’s alright, I think. Let those bygones be, darling."

"Alright, then," Harry replied, giving Draco a tiny poke in his bare shoulder, "but what exactly are you leading up to, bringing this up now? I mean, clearly I don’t know everything there is to know about how Wizards get some but I do know rather enough to get by, I’d think. I mean, look at us!" He flapped a hand at their circumstances, smirking. "So. Certainly enough to teach a bunch of hormone-infested teenagers what to stick where and what spells to use to _not_ end up with a baby. Or a case of nasty boils!"

Draco didn’t rush to agree. He shrugged a bare shoulder, instead, and caught Harry’s hand on the down-swing, lacing their fingers together. 

"Mmm, first off, Harry, it’s not only the shagging habits of Wizarding folk you need to be lecturing on, it’s all the magical Beings. And second, it’s not all about sticking things in places and necessary protective spells and potions. Certainly that’s paramount but there’s rather a lot of other factors involved across the spectrum and you really do need to be able to walk into your classroom prepared for nearly every question they throw at you. Believe you me, they will do so! That’s one thing I can attest to, speaking as a Healer. Teenagers--children--will always ask questions, love. It’s endemic. Characteristic, even." 

"Granted. Your lessons cover all of that, I’m assuming? Completely comprehensive, soup to nuts?" Harry squinted sternly, folding his lips thin and shaking his head. "Because you’ll be leaving me on my own when it’s Ted’s turn in April and you’ve mentioned Metamorphagi specially already like they’re some special case all by themselves--and now I am actually, truly nervous, Draco!"

"Like I said before, don’t be." Draco ruffled Harry’s hair fondly, looking not at all put out to be doubted. "We will be going over everything, love. From soup to nuts, as those Muggle cooking people say. The whole smorgasbord. I’m not having you feeling you’ve been left in a lurch, don’t worry." 

"Huh." 

"Doubting Potter," Draco chuckled. "Right, let’s us put that aside for a moment and have ourselves a real kip before supper, shall we? We’ve Headmistress yet to meet with later this evening and I’m already exhausted, just thinking about it. She’s a copy of my proposed curriculum already in hand. I cannot wait to be grilled to death on the details of it, I’m sure." 

"Oh, and Flitwick and Pince and Pomfrey, too. Just so you know," Harry remarked sleepily, pleased by the idea of a real nap and very willing to go along with Draco’s plan. He’d been missing the man rather fiercely. Night shifts really were no joy. "There’s a bloody committee for this, of course. When is there ever not, right?" 

"Good. There should be," Draco said, sounding pleased. "It’s not a topic to leave up to just any professorial whim. Imagine if it were Lockhart, Harry? What if he’d been teaching us the ins and outs of shagging? The mental and emotional damage that man could've done to us all is phenomenal. Abysmally so! Ack!"

‘"Please don’t make me imagine Gilderoy Lockhart teaching anyone about sex, alright?" Harry pleaded, yawning and determinedly closing his eyes on the idea. "In fact, ah! Please don' ever mention bloody Lockhart and sex in the same sentence again, not if you love me. I’d not choose to have nightmares, ta ever so." 

"Yes, dear." Harry could hear Draco's smile, although he couldn't see it, what with his eyelids being so absurdly heavy. 

"Riiiight," he smiled in return, yawning again. "G’night." 

"Hmmm. Sweet dreams, Harry."


	2. Friday Evening

“Right, and just so you know, love,” Harry muttered, bumping shoulders with Draco as they headed off to McGonagall’s office after a subdued but still lavish post-Christmas hols dinner the Hogwarts elves served the staff and those few students boarding over, “McGonagall may seem peevish over this but she’s actually enthusiastic. Been petitioning the Board of Governors for ages, apparently, telling them there was a crying need for sex education in a boarding school serving this many different age groups. Always was pushed off, of course, and I fear that’s left her a bit bitter, but now we arrived at the cusp of it, she’s very gung-ho. For her, I mean.” 

“You don’t say,” Draco replied, raising one eyebrow. “Hmm. And Pince? Pomfrey? How do they feel about it?” 

“Pince is actually just as eager to get on as McGonagall is, believe it or not,” Harry chuckled. “I rather think it's more she’s bone weary of having all the texts to do with love potions, charms and what-have-you go forever missing into the aether and then having to be perpetually replaced, really. Quite expensive that is, in the long run. Plus the stacks and the Restricted Section are always a magnet for the younger ones as they mess about. Older ones, too, though they seem to prefer the odd unused classroom, the Astronomy Tower or down by the Lake. She carried on quite a bit about the constant cleaning and tidying necessary and what spunk and saliva did to book bindings and parchment in general. Enlightening, it was. Gross, but enlightening.” 

“So nothing’s changed there,” Draco observed sagely, nodding. “At least not with the student body.”

“Nope,” Harry agreed cheerily. He stopped to provide the password and then gallantly waved Draco up the steps before him. “Pomfrey’s been rather close-lipped, at least so far, but she’s had a worried look in her eyes since the word came down from the Governors we’d the go-ahead. So, not sure, really, what to expect from her. And...we’re here! Ready?” 

“As I’ll ever be,” Draco replied, very much under his breath as Harry gave the door to the Headmistress’s office a peremptory knock up and then immediately stepped through as it swung open. 

“Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy,” McGonagall greeted them, looking up from her neatly organized blotter. “Do be seated. Tea is just coming. As is Filius, who’s unfortunately been detained a few moments by some minor matter. How do you do, Mr Malfoy? I meant to ask after you earlier.” 

“Quite well, thank you,” Draco smiled. “And you, Madame Headmistress? Looking in fine fettle from what I can see. The apples on your cheeks never wither.”

“Ah-hah, such a flatterer, as always!” Pomfrey giggled from behind a large unrolled scroll she was perusing and peeped at Draco over top it. “Speaking of ‘fine fettle’, you, young man, are looking very well for a Healer coming off holiday rotation! Well done!” 

“Cheers!” Draco thanked her, nodding amiably to Mistress Pince as he deftly slid by her on his way to the settee he was clearly intent on sharing with Harry. “And how do you do, Miss Pince? I swear you’ve not aged a day since I attended school here at Hogwarts.” 

“Pish tosh,” Pince tutted, but she didn’t seem at all offended. “Very well, thank you. Better now we’ve finally the approval gained to embark on these lectures. I cannot even begin to relate to you the amount of sheer frustration I experience, Mr Malfoy, every single term, when I place yet another order with Flourish & Blotts for the umpteenth copy of _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways_!” 

“Not to mention _Love Spells For the Lonely_ and _Potions of Passion_ , Irma,” McGonagall added with a quick frown. “Every other week we seem to require another of either of those--or both at once if it’s nearing Valentine’s Day. That’s no less than five Galleons, two Knuts and three Sickels thrown away as if it were nothing. A terrible waste of resources and funds!”

“Not to be borne, Minnie; simply an outrage,” Pomfrey chimed in with an air of commiseration. “Especially when they all could simply come up to my office and consult with me! Sex is a medical matter, foremost, do you not agree, Harry?”

“Ah?” Harry, having made his way to the sofa, dogging Draco’s footsteps and smiling diplomatically at the entire little gathering, blinked at her, nonplussed. “Er. Maybe?” 

“I’m certain any medical professional would support your view, ma’am,” Draco interjected smoothly, “seeing as we are the ones who have the most practical knowledge of the physical aspects and repercussions. But your average fourteen year old would likely not agree, sadly.” 

“No matter. It grows late, and I fear we must crack on if we are to accomplish anything of note this evening, with or without our final committee member. Who is most unfortunately tardy,” McGonagall said sharply, looking quite done with the sundry quibbling and complaining. 

The door to her office slammed suddenly open, framing the tardy professor in question. Professor Flitwick. 

“Oh, there you are, Filius--finally!” McGonagall snapped. “Come in, come in, do, and let us at last begin this discussion, shall we?”

“Sorry, sorry, pardon!” the professor burbled, sailing through the doorway at a rapid clip. He fetched up before the only visitor’s seat left available, one which fortuitously charmed itself to suit him, and clambered on. “All apologies, Madames et Messieurs. A trifling matter detained me. Happily set to rest,” he beamed, nodding round the room politely. “Now, where were we?” 

“The lesson plans,” McGonagall stated firmly and with an unmistakable hint of fire in her gaze. “A bone of contention since the matter was broached, those. One I hope to have settled this very evening, however. There are several alternatives put forward already but everyone here has agreed they each have something...lacking. Mr Malfoy, I understand you’ve brought along a set of your own?” 

“I have,” Draco replied, completely unperturbed at being put on the spot. “Right here. Shall I share them ‘round?” he asked rhetorically, helpfully tapping the sheaf of them with his wand and producing the proper number of duplicates almost before he’d finished asking. “Ah, there we are. Here, Harry. Pass them about for me?” 

“Gladly,” Harry hastened to agree, and sent them off with a wand flick, hastily grabbing back a copy for himself at the last second. “A great deal of thought Draco’s put into these,” he made the point of stating loudly. “At least _I_ think so.” 

“Hear, hear, Harry!” Flitwick replied enthusiastically. 

“I should hope so, then,” Pince added, perhaps not so enthusiastically but with an air of someone willing to be impressed, all the same. “I’d expect no less from the current rising star of our St Mungo’s top-notch staff. Ahem.”

“To work, people,” McGonagall ordered. “Enough dawdling.” 

“No need to cheer me on, Harry,” Draco leaned in to breathe in Harry’s ear, though there was an appreciative gleam in his eye. “The work speaks for itself, I think. See?” 

“Hmm,” McGonagall hummed, eyes scanning parchment at an inhuman pace. “Yes, yes...er, yes,” she murmured, nodding every now and again with apparent approval. 

Pince, Flitwick and Pomfrey were much quieter about it, although Flitwick continued to beam broadly as he read through every single line of every single page using his wand tip as a pointer and Pince’s occasional sniffs as she riffled through the sheaf seemed mostly approving. Pomfrey, however, frowned all through, her lips pursed and eyes squinty behind her half-moon reading specs. Harry kept a close eye on her expression, nudging Draco in the ribs discreetly to direct his attention to it. 

“Psst. You think something’s bothering her? She doesn’t seem too chuffed,” he whispered, leaning up against his lover. “What’s up with that, d’you think?”

“Don’t know,” Draco murmured, quiet as could be. “I’d’ve thought she’d be the most in favour. How very odd.” 

“Yes,” Harry nodded, agreeing and mentally filing away a memo to keep tabs on Pomfrey’s behaviour in the future, and especially in the next fortnight whilst Draco was to be at Hogwarts, lending Harry a hand in the classroom. It concerned him quite a bit, going in as he was as a neophyte instructor teaching an entirely volatile subject to a completely unpredictable group of students and consequently requiring all the support he could possibly muster. Particularly from his fellow faculty members! “Ahem. Too peculiar...”

“Right.” McGonagall all at once shuffled her copy of the lesson plan into one orderly heap and laid it upon her blotter with a business-like snap. A scant quarter hour had passed. “Most satisfactory, Mr Malfoy! I rather think our most urgent quandary has finally been properly addressed. This is a more than acceptable method of presenting the appropriate material, your plan. I fully approve, as Headmistress of this fine institution. All else in favour of accepting Mr Malfoy’s submission, raise your wands, please,” she directed her fellow faculty, staring about them with a minatory eye. “Quickly now!” 

Startled, Harry shot his wand up. One by one the other professors followed suit, Pince and Flitwick in quite short order and Pomfrey clearly reluctantly and markedly slow about it, being the very last one to do so. Even so, Draco smiled quietly, satisfaction evident. 

“Thank you,” he said, glancing about them and returning Flitwick’s eternal wreath of smiles with a very kneazle-got-the-cream one of his own. “That’s most complimentary of you, Headmistress. Now. Are there any questions, any points in need of clarification?” 

“Well, I--”

“No!” McGonagall cut off Poppy Pomfrey with a glare and a decisive tap of her wand tip on Draco’s plan. “There are not, thank you. And if there are any small items, I’m certain you’ll be about and available to address them, Mr Malfoy. That being said, we have cleared our agenda for the evening and you are all free to go. Thank you for attending. A pleasant night to you all. Mind you shut the door behind you, please.”

“Right, yes!” 

“Cheers, all!” Flitwick chirped, hopping off his seat and beating the path to the door.

“A good night, everyone,” Pince wished them sedately, following straight after. 

Harry and Draco rose hastily, falling in line behind the perpetually sniffing Pince and the heartily beaming Flitwick, and made haste to also exit. Only Pomfrey lagged behind, dragging her feet, and Harry lost sight of her in the crush at the door. 

“Well! She’s in a bloody mood, isn’t she?” Draco hissed as they made the door and got through it, each taking care not to step on the dragging edge of Flitwick’s professorial robes. “I wonder what Madame Pomfrey was going to ask?” 

“Dunno,” Harry whispered back. “But I think it’s a thing we should be finding out, don't you? I’d rather not have our Head Healer be on the outs with me--or you, for that matter. She knows people, you know. Up at St Mungo’s. I don't want there to be any rumours or--or anything bad, Draco. Merlin knows you’ve not had it particularly handed to you on a platter, your career, and I’m not having anything crop up and endanger it, not now.” 

“Whoa, Harry,” Draco replied soothingly as they made their way hand in hand down the corridor to the staircase shaft. “No need to go on the offensive just yet. It’s probably nothing, really. Just some small misunderstanding. Sex is,” he chuckled, “a very sensitive topic, don't you know? People do tend to get hot and bothered over it, I find.” 

“You’re awful,” Harry remarked. “Punning at a time like this.” 

“No I’m not,” Draco replied promptly. “Really. Think about it, Harry. Hup!” They assayed the staircase they required for access to Harry’s section of the castle, gaining the first tricky step and then moving along quickly. “Humour is often the best way to attack difficult topics. I use it all the time at St Mungo's. Laughter is, as that one famous Muggle said, the best medicine, funnily enough.” 

“For shagging, though?” Harry said doubtfully. “But shagging’s usually so...so serious, love. I mean, it’s not something people really have a guffaw over. Do they?” 

“Of course they do, darling.” 

Draco shook his head in bemusement, smiling as Harry went through the usual password routine outside the door to his suite. Coming back to his apartments seemed always to go much more quickly than the leaving of them, he’d found. He thought perhaps Hogwarts School of Magic had an inkling that its occupants very much preferred the safety and comfort of their own allotted spaces soonest after a long day of teaching or learning. He most definitely did, especially when Draco had come down for a long weekend or on the rare week nights he wasn’t on call at St Mungo’s. 

“People giggle and snort and fart and make funny noises whilst they’re shagging all the time,” Draco went on, casting off his robes and tie on the way past the catch-all table. “Half of them can’t even discuss it with their Healers without breaking out into some version of nervous laughter. Teenagers especially. People mostly always laugh with pleasure, too, whilst they’re doing it, or even thinking about doing it. And after it they’ve done it, generally. Chuckles, hoots, giggles--everything and anything in between. You do it, Harry--so do I, for that matter. It’s natural.”

“Really?” Harry’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose I’ve never realized. Or noticed, especially.” 

“Oh yes,” Draco said seriously, coming up behind Harry and giving him a quick embrace on his way to the lav. “It’s only when there’s never any laughter during sex that there’s a problem. Shagging’s meant to be enjoyable. And laughter is a way of expressing that. If a patient is telling me there’s none of it ever, I, as a Healer, have to wonder what might not be right in the equation. It’s one of things we train for, Harry, asking the proper questions so as to gauge if a patient is feeling safe and comfortable in their various sexual experiences. And it’s one of the topics you’ll be covering in my curriculum, so you'd better prepare yourself for a Lake’s worth of giggling and hilarity.” 

“Bloody hell, I’m going to need some sort of Muffling Spell, then,” Harry remarked ruefully, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of Draco running the sink on the lav. “Just to be heard over the din!”

“Hmm, you’d better believe it,” Draco poked his head out and grinned, his blond hair all damp round his narrow face. He winked lasciviously, giving Harry’s nakedness a once-over. “Hmm. At least it’ll be a cheery two weeks, eh? Laughter’s contagious, you know. The whole school is likely to become infected.”

“Right, then,” Harry addressed his pillows with determination. “I shall prepare myself not to be taken seriously. Lovely. Exactly what a prof needs, I’m sure!” 

“Oh, it’s not that, darling,” Draco said, coming out of the lav and climbing into bed after Harry. They each tugged the duvet up and set the sheets straight, Draco giving his pillow a little thump to flatten it as he preferred. “They’ll be hanging on your every word, trust me. These kids want to know these things, especially the Muggleborn ones.” 

“Why them in particular?” Harry asked curiously, turning his head to stare at his companion. 

“They don’t know--can’t know, really; no fault of their own, I assure you--the aspects of magical shagging, Harry,” Draco replied seriously, his brow wrinkling with clear concern. “We’re _not_ Muggles, really, for all that we look like them and even though there’s Muggles who produce magical sprog. There’s some very marked differences, both cultural and physical. And how would they know that, I ask you? Their Muggle parents don’t know to teach them and--as we are all very much aware--they certainly haven’t been given a proper sexual education here at Hogwarts.” 

“Bloody too right.” Harry said grimly. “I just rather wish I weren’t the one McGonagall tasked to give them it.”

“I think you’ll be wonderful, darling,” Draco smiled, rolling to face Harry. “I do, and that’s not flattery at all.” He lifted a hand and ruffled it through Harry’s hair. “You’re the wonderful Professor Potter already, you know; in their eyes absolutely you are, and I think the best possible choice she could have made to do it.” 

“But why not a St Mungo’s Healer instead? Someone qualified, like you are,” Harry asked irritably. “Or Pomfrey. Pomfrey’s so much the obvious choice, Draco. She’s our bleeding Medic, she’s been for positive centuries now, and I’m not sure she’s not a bit miffed she wasn’t chosen!” 

“Oh, well, that, yes...” Draco hesitated for a moment, lips twisting and eyes going thoughtful. “Perhaps because McGonagall feels she’s enough responsibilities already? Or maybe it’s awkward, you know? It is, a bit. I see the same at St Mungo’s. People are quite hesitant to come asking us Healers questions about how to go about the sexual act or what happens before or afterwards--and especially when something goes wrong. That’s always fucking awkward, trust me.” 

Harry giggled. “Oh, yes! Remember that one patient you told me of, the one with the--”

“Er, yes! Right, that one,” Draco said quickly, clearing his throat and flushing faintly. “That was a right mess, and let’s not talk about it anymore, shall we? I’d like to sleep soundly tonight, love. Bit exhausted, actually. Holidays are hard fucking work for Healers.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry said penitently, “but yes, I do understand what you’re saying about it being awkward, talking about shagging with your Healer. I’m sure I’d feel strange, doing it. Thank Merlin I have you, love.” 

“Thank Merlin all round, Harry,” Draco grinned. “Little did I ever imagine, back in Fourth and Fifth when I was wanking furiously over that really horridly annoying boy with the stupid scar that I would one day be bloody ecstatic to show him how to properly take it up the arsehole and love it. Bit fabulous, what? Has to be a bloody magical miracle it even turned out that way.”

“Plonker,” Harry laughed, reaching over beneath the sheet and giving his beloved a firm pinch on the hip. “You’re so full of yourself! You hardly had to teach me that part. I’m pretty sure I knew I liked it rather quite a lot before _we_ ever did the deed.”

“Huh,” Draco scoffed, removing Harry’s fingers by dint of catching them up and gripping them firmly. “Still. You may’ve liked it, darling, but you didn’t quite understand all the finesse involved. No way you really could, though. Every set of lovers is different all over again--which, please note, is a lesson you’ll be teaching the students. Everyone is different, Harry, and what works for one individual won’t necessarily translate automatically to the next.” 

“True.” Harry thought about it. “There’s things Gin and I did that I wouldn’t very much enjoy with you. And vice versa, I’m sure.” 

“Yes.” Draco’s eyes were intent. “The implication there being that you did, in fact, enjoy the differences, as well as the similarities. That’s important, Harry. Teenagers like and need and want to and _will_ experiment. One of the reasons why poor Pince keeps losing her books so often. They’ll gobble up any source of information they can find, and devour it right down.” 

Harry heaved a sigh, a drowsy one, lazily shifting his hips and torso about so that he could tuck his head up against Draco’s chest. 

“Well. There’s one thing I do know, having given your lesson plan a look.”

“Hmm? What’s that, darling?” Draco kissed Harry’s hairline gently. “Tell me.” 

“I’m damned glad you’re here to help out.” Harry smiled in return, unseen, the little wisps of white-blond hair on Draco’s chest curling up and tickling his nostrils. “Pfft! I’m not sure I could ever manage it single-handedly.”

“No, you will.” The long lean arms about Harry tightened for an instant, lending reassurance. “It’s not so difficult. They’ll be eager to learn and you, you will be an excellent instructor. It’ll be easier than you think, love. I’m sure of it.” 

“Good-oh, then. Glad you're so positive about it.” 

“Oh, I am. Now go to sleep, Harry. We’ve only a couple of days left before they all come back for term and tomorrow’s going to be all about labs and practicals. You’ll need your rest.” 

“Mmm, yes, dear.” 

“Quite right,” Draco said. “Night, Harry. Sweet dreams.” 

“Same to you, love.” 


	3. Saturday

Morning came rather too early for Harry, but that was a given when Draco was around. The man sprang to life, fully and blindingly cognizant and aware, at the earliest crack of dawn and immediately went about the necessary preparations for the day. Sometimes he even bloody whistled under his breath whilst doing it, too, which was slightly infuriating for Harry, who rather liked to lie-in for as long as possible. 

Generally, though, he just gritted his teeth and endured it, especially as it meant Draco was the one handling the tea-and-toast aspect and also that Harry never had to kiss a mouth full of morning breath. 

Besides, the rewards of having a very virile man in his bed, all spanking clean and quite interesting in exploring his slowly wakening bits, were too stellar to be dismissed lightly. 

“Mmmm, Harry,” Draco whispered, nibbling his merry way about Harry’s chest and neck and alighting on his earlobe. “You taste, mmm, like salt. Good salt, Harry salt.” 

He gave Harry a lick up his jowl and rolled carefully atop him, balancing his weight carefully, his cock nudging insistently against Harry’s thigh. 

“Wanna shag, salty man? I know I do.” 

Harry cracked open one eye blearily and regarded his beloved. Who was smacking his lips and eyeing Harry up and down lingeringly, much as a starving vampire might regard a tasty morsel.

“...’kay,” Harry allowed, easing into a careful stretch to limber himself up. “If you do the work, Draco, I’ll consider it.” 

“Oh, no fear,” Draco grinned. “I excel at ‘doing the work’ and you know it. Just lie back and think of _Hogwarts, A History_ or something and I’ll just--” 

He cut himself off to swoop down, setting his lips just at the base of Harry’s throat, and nipped it gently. In the blink of a sleepy green eye, he scuttled further down the mattress and had Harry’s half-hard prick engulfed in that minty-fresh mouth, suckling it carefully. 

“...thish,” he mumbled indistinctly. “Awwrii?”

“Oh gawd!” Harry’s eye popped fully open as he tensed, instinctively spreading his thighs wider. “Oh, gah-gah- _fuck_!” 

Draco laughed--or rather, he snorted through flaring nostrils and made a noise that definitely indicated amusement, muffled though it was by his mouthful--and then sucked and licked all the more, and rapidly. 

Harry’s heart rate went from somnolent to super-charged and that familiar tingling spark of desire spread like wildfire through his body. He groaned, and Draco whined about his girth, spilling hot saliva everywhere and adding the delicious sensation of slippery to all the other lovely feelings infusing Harry’s person. 

It was over quite quickly; morning blowies usually were like that. It seemed only a few moments later when Draco flopped down beside Harry, rubbing a few smears of his own spew up Harry’s sternum and chuckling breathlessly. Harry batted at his hand in a vague way but not seriously and they somehow slid into a long languorous snog, one which nearly sent Harry off to the Land of Nod again. 

“Hmm, lag-a-bed, no. Sorry, but you need to be awake now,” Draco chided him softly, just as Harry was about to surrender to sleep again. “Labs and practicals, remember? Get up, do. Have a wash and I’ll see about tea. We’re too early for breakfast yet. Alright?” 

“Mmm, yes, I s’pose,” Harry reluctantly agreed, yawning mightily. 

He carefully rolled to the edge of the bed and peered down, searching for his slippers. 

“Er? Any chance of a sweet bun? Or toast with that tea? You’ve made me hungry, love.” 

He gave his stomach a quick rub, grimacing at the grumble. 

“Well! I _do_ hope I always manage to make you hungry, Harry,” Draco quipped, bouncing out of the bed on the other side and standing up, his full starkers glory revealed by the significantly brighter morning light pouring in through the window sheers. “But of course. Go have a whiz and a shower; it’ll be waiting for you by the time you’ve finished.” 

“Ta, love,” Harry said, blowing the man a kiss, and went off to the lavatory, disdaining his robe as unnecessary. No sense in staining it and causing the elves more work.

“Good morning, Draco!” 

Harry emerged from his shower a different man, one who beamed at his beloved as he entered the room clad only in a towel and hair dripping. 

“Be just a moment,” he promised, shedding his towel and diving into their wardrobe. 

True to his word, Draco had a tray set upon their small drawing room table, a teapot steaming as it steeped and also a miniature silver ewer of smooth, rich coffee for Harry, who preferred to indulge in one single solitary cup every morning, heavily creamed and sugared, but only after his usual first cuppa. There were also scones and the usual accouterments, plus a pile of lovely thick golden toast, already buttered.

Draco simply smiled fondly and set about pouring out. 

They both set to, Harry awake sufficiently to embark on the beginnings of a discussion of exactly the details of Draco’s much vaunted labs and practicals. They were numerous, indeed, and ranged from ancient remedies to more modern preparations, and most involved specialized incantations and brewing.

“Now, this one here,” he began, thumbing through Draco’s plan hurriedly. “It’s got netherwort, but the other has hornberry? That’s so confusing.” 

“Yes, Harry, and it’s because they do different things,” Draco replied, launching into a succinct explanation of various similar sex potions. “You see--” He went on to describe the four most common methods of preventing the transmission of common diseases, ticking them off one by one as Harry sipped and slathered jam, listening intently.

“...and on that note, Harry,” Draco concluded, having finished off his share of toast with two last neat bites and an elegant dab of his napkin, “we need to keep their attention focussed on the potion or spell or charm at hand at all times. Cannot have them buggering up basic lubrication or, for the sake of all that’s sacred, any of the spells we use to prevent disease, infection or pregnancy, can we? So it’s all got to be kept fast paced and simple and very, very clear on the steps, see? They must be able to see the demonstration clearly and hear every word of instruction so there's no mistakes, yes? And they’ll always have their own copy of the plan to refer back to, of course. No sense setting them up for failure. That won't do.” 

“I see, yes,” Harry nodded vehemently. “Damn, but how I wish we’d been taught these things when we were younger, Draco. There were so many times I messed it up.” 

“What?” Draco demanded curiously, arching an eyebrow. “What did _you_ mess up? You've never been incompetent, Harry. Distracted, perhaps, but never doltish.” 

“Lube,” Harry said simply. “No one ever taught me it. I mean, I overheard Ron a few times, whispering the incantation when he was using it, but I was, er.” He shrugged, staring down at the last crust of his toast. “Embarrassed. Too much so to actually ask him about it. I suppose he assumed I simply knew, too. So it wasn’t till Hermione had that one book out from the Library, you know? The one the kids always scarper off with? That I was able to look up the spell and do it properly. I felt so bloody stupid, not knowing all that time, doing it wrong.” 

“Ahah!” Draco exclaimed, sitting back suddenly. “I knew it.” 

He folded his arms across his chest and stared at Harry intently, one icy brow arched. 

"Really?" Harry eyed him dubiously. "That was a long time ago, Draco."

“Yes, but see? That’s precisely what I meant, last night. Muggleborns, love. They don’t know and they need to. And you're the perfect one to show them how. You have both the understanding and the experience, Harry. Cannot ask for more than that, not in a lecture on Sexual Relations. McGonagall is a very canny Witch indeed, choosing you.”

“You say this,” Harry laughed softly, “but I still have my doubts. And I still think we should ask Pomfrey to at least advise us. She’s been dealing with the fallout from all the sexcapades here at Hogwarts for literally generations now and she has to be a brilliant resource, if nothing else. And I’m very afraid of offending her, Draco, honestly. By _not_ asking her advice. She’s quite a lot of influence in your circles, quite a lot of it. And the Ministry too. I don’t want her thinking her toes are being stepped on. I don’t know that she would, but I don’t wish to chance it, either.” 

“Mmm.” Draco blinked slowly, thinking it over and then nodded decisively. “Very well. I’ll defer to your better judgement on this, Harry. You know the school culture better than I do at this point and you’re also spot on about her knowing all the right people. I mean to say, I’d never believe she’d set out to make things difficult for me on a personal basis, you know? It’s only that fully half the people I deal with at St Mungo’s and in the City had her for school nurse here and utterly revere her. Any little negative referencing me, even in passing, that comes tripping off her lips accidentally could indeed harm my rep and make my life markedly more difficult. I’d rather not, thanks.” 

“Exactly so,” Harry replied, eyes gleaming with satisfaction for the point won. “So we will take steps to avert that. Starting today. She’s not seen my new SR classroom. For that matter, neither have you. I’ll just send a note asking her to meet us in, say, an hour? And we’ll start there. Alright?”

“Alright, love.” 

“Brilliant.”

An hour later, Harry had called in on Pince and collected his sample of textbooks and sent a note off to Pomfrey, inviting her. She’d assented with alacrity and he and Draco stood in the entry of Harry’s specially redesigned classroom, looking about them. 

“Oh, boys! Hoo-ooh!” Pomfrey called out, hurrying down the corridor leading to the classroom. “Am I tardy?” 

“Of course not, Poppy,” Harry assured her, smiling warmly. “You’re perfectly on time. I was just about to give Draco the Cook’s Tour. Come inside?”

“Thank you, Harry,” Pomfrey replied, whisking herself through with a flurry of starched everything. “Oh! My, Harry, this is unusual, isn't it? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything quite like here, at Hogwarts. Not even Filius has ventured this far out of the usual seating arrangement.” 

“Well, no, he hasn't, but I’ve consulted him about it, as a matter of fact,” Harry said proudly. “He approved.” 

“I quite like it,” Draco announced, strolling about and looking over the seating arrangements and the potions work stations and various chalkboards and classroom texts. “Reminds me of Healer’s School, Harry. Very wand’s on.” 

“Yes, that influenced me, actually.” Harry smiled. “As has Snape, who has decided opinions about sex potions, believe me, and how to go about making them safely. It’ll be the Sixth and Seventh Years coming in as the first lot, so this is all designed with older students in mind.” He gestured about him, indicating the classroom. “And Hermione’s had input too, as well as Ron and my old Auror mates who train the recruits these days. I rather like how it turned out, this.”

He waved an arm about, beaming proudly. 

"Isn't is grand?" 

The room was not by any means a regular lecture hall, with serried ranks of long narrow tables and chairs in a row, all rigidly facing forward to a chalkboard. Instead there were smaller oval tables, each provided with an ample workspace for groups of two to six students to work over a cauldron or spread out their materials for a charm, spell or in-class essay assignment. There was indeed still a chalkboard, but more than one, and Harry had set up the expansive room so that there were several distinct areas dedicated, more or less, to different uses. All about the room, running beneath the masses of tall windows providing lovely views of the Lake, were situated shelves upon shelves of built in bookcases, each stocked with both the basics plus a few Muggle texts and several age appropriate fictional works. There was also a display of large posters along the interior walls, some very medically oriented and fact-packed with terminology and others leaning towards the lighter side of love, romance and shagging. Lastly there was a center podium from which Harry planned to conduct his class, equipped also with a small potions making area that all his students could easily view from their tables. 

"It is, indeed," Draco said gravely, looking about him with a gleam of approval in his keen grey gaze. "Very inviting, Harry. Perfect for the purpose." 

“It’s--it’s quite progressive, isn’t it, Harry?” Pomfrey asked faintly, occupied with poking her head in the special ‘private consultation booth’ Harry had set up at the very back of the classroom by the potions supply cabinet. “I really have never--do you truly think it will work? You shan’t lose their attention this way? I would fear for pranking, if it were me.” 

“We'll be keeping them far too busy to have time for that nonsense, Madame,” Draco said, nimbly sliding into the breach. "There’s to be the two of us, first off, so we can each be instructing separately--divide and conquer, right? And we will have the seating sorted out randomly each time they come in, so no chance to establish little cliques there.”

"Indeed," Harry nodded, gesturing. "If you notice, there's no one single 'best spot' to fight over. They're all equally decent. I made certain of that, believe me."

“Ooo!” Pomfrey exclaimed, looking struck. “That’s a bit brilliant. Never thought of that, I must admit.” 

"That's right," Draco nodded happily. "No room for Houses in this classroom. Just like the real world they'll be entering into, ma'am. All kneazles are grey in the night, right?" 

“We’ll also be having guest lecturers come in, Poppy,” Harry grinned, continuing quickly, “including yourself, if you would be so kind? I believe--we believe, Draco and I--that it’s crucial for the older students especially to have ready access to a person with your high degree of expertise in physical matters. But we don’t want to overburden you either, so it will be carefully formatted. I was thinking a set Q&A session, moderated, and then the use of the private booth back there for any student needing to ask you any especially personal questions. What do you think? Would you be willing?” 

Pomfrey blushed, looking exceptionally pleased.

“Oh, why, thank you, Harry! Draco, you too, dear. That’s rather--I really do--I mean, _yes_ , that would be most agreeable! I have been rueing dear Minnie’s insistence that it not be me, in charge of this programme, I must admit. It's such a burden for you, dear Harry, to be saddled with such a complicated subject so soon into your teaching career. But I also have so little actual time available, what with running the Infirmary and with the spring Quidditch season coming on so shortly after all the dear students return. I’ve been torn up about it, really. Not that I ever, ever doubted your ability to teach the material, of course. I’m sure they’ll be in good hands now,” she added hastily, nodding her head so furiously in the assent her cap went askew. “It’s so reassuring, Harry dear. To know that Draco has contributed so much medical knowledge to the plan for the lessons is brilliant. I shall be sure to mention it to my cousin in the Ministry, don’t you know.”

“How lovely,” Harry grinned. “I'm sure Draco here will appreciate that, you putting in a good word for him. He’s not had it come easily, what with his dad. Any help along the way is much appreciated!” 

“Indeed!” Draco chimed in fervently. “My father’s name has done me no favours, I assure you. Uphill battle, all the way.” 

“Oh no, t’is but a trifle,” Pomfrey said, shaking her head over it and smiling. “They’ll come round in the end. You cannot keep a good Healer down, can you?” 

“No,” Draco replied, all stern and serious of face. “You cannot. But you do need to work twice as hard and be twice as brilliant if there’s perceived to be a black mark against you. I’ve consulted with my other colleagues about it and I’m certainly not alone in that feeling--or experience. I pray to Merlin for the day when who your parents were or what your last name is or where you come from doesn't matter anymore. But that's a ways off, I’m afraid.”

“Every little bit helps, darling,” Harry said gently, crossing the room to give his beloved a bracing pat on the shoulder. “Don’t give up.” 

“Never!” Pomfrey added, much in the manner of a strident suffragette. “Never give up, never give in, Draco Malfoy. You’re brilliant at what you do and time will tell it true. Keep that in mind always. The truth does out.” 

“Well, thank you, Madam,” Draco said, clearly startled by such vehemence on his behalf. “I’m glad you feel that way.” 

“I most certainly do,” Pomfrey replied staunchly, carefully adjusting her starched cap. “And said as much when that posh Witch from the Académie Nationale de Arts de la Guérison came looking for your references five years ago, young man. Informed her you had the makings of an excellent Healer and they should be bloody well grateful you’d even applied!” 

“Well!” Draco repeated, eyes wide and clearly shocked. Pleased, too, Harry noted, seeing the faint bloom of colour wash across his cheeks. “That’s--I mean to say--that’s, ah.”

“Quite enough of that, Draco Malfoy,” Pomfrey interrupted firmly, crossing to the door of the classroom. “It is what it is. There’s no need to thank me now for something that I’d intended to do all along. You were a brilliant student, Draco; Severus was always justifiably proud of you for your marks. And I always knew you had an interest in healing. Certainly you were up in the Infirmary often enough, asking endless questions of me, and poking about when you thought I wasn’t looking.” 

"Oh...right. I, er, rather did, didn't I?" 

Draco flushed several shades darker and sneaked a hapless sideways glance at Harry, who’d been busy biting back a face-splitting grin all through the entire exchange. Harry, interpreting that wild eye roll as an appeal for help, hastily stepped in the breach. 

“Yes, indeed, Draco was a very busy boy back then, always up to something,” he interjected hastily, barely hearing what he was saying to fill the gap--until very suddenly he did do! “Oh, ah! Erm, right! And weren’t we all, eh, Poppy? Well. I mean, _I_ was, definitely. I meant. Being a boy, very busy. Not _you_ , so much, Poppy. I mean you were terribly busy running the Infirmary, of course, but not a--”

"Harry," Draco hissed, "zip it!" 

“Yes, yes, I do believe I know what you meant, Harry,” Pomfrey replied comfortably, giving them both a very knowing look. “Such interesting times they were, hmm? However, I can’t stay to reminisce with you right now, much as I would like to; I must dash off. I do believe you mentioned you’ve your class practicals and potions yet to brew yet and I, I have an appointment down in the village I mustn’t miss.” She primped her starched cap again, hand firm on the knob and stepping backwards. “I’m afraid my dear Monsieur Coiffeur will not keep! Cheers!” 

"Oh, well, brilliant. Cheers, then!" Harry chirped, essaying a spritely wave as she bustled out the door. "Enjoy your outing, ma'am!" 

“...Cheers,” Draco echoed, sagging, looking limp and a little tight around the edges. "Merlin, but that was awkward." Sighing heavily, he turned sharply to Harry. “Still. She’s right, you know. We’ve quite a lot of fucking work before us this morning. Shall we set to?” 

“Yes, of course,” Harry agreed, shrugging. "Best just to dive in." He pointed over to his main work table, set central to the groupings of student desks. “Here, I've made us a start. I’ve got all the ingredients at the ready for the first lot of potions. Save us a little time, I thought.” 

“Good man,” Draco nodded, crossing the room and pointing his wand at the spirit burner set below a small silver cauldron. “The Universal Protection Potion to start, I should think.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Harry agreed, coming over to watch as Draco yanked down his Healer’s work goggles and buttoned up his robe’s sleeves. “The others are mostly variations of that one anyway. I’ll begin prepping what’s needed for the Love Potion antidotes whilst you’re doing that, alright? We'll need to mark times here, of course. Can't have one potion taking up the time allowed for a full lecture.” 

“Yes, exactly,” Draco agreed, busy about stirring the aquae vitae he'd poured in and already in midst of competently adding vials and pinches of this and that. “We can do our simple spellwork after luncheon. Shouldn't take long, really.” 

“Nope,” Harry agreed, on his way to his small Potions cabinet. "Not the way you've laid it out, Draco. Hate to admit it, but your instructions are better even than the Half-Blood Prince's."

"Yes, and that's mostly thanks to the Professeure de Potions at my Healer's uni, really." Draco grinned, shaking his head over his nearly completed potion. "Mademoiselle Saladine. I'll never forget her."

"Huh," Harry said, returning with a basket of ingredients. "Harridan type?" 

"Um, no, not precisely," Draco smiled. "Just very particular. You know that Muggle maths term, 'squared'?" 

Harry nodded, cocking his chin inquisitively. 

"Well, Saladine is Snape all over again, for intensity, and for knowing the subject matter, but _squared_ , if you can imagine it. Very much better groomed, of course; she's French." 

"Fancy," Harry remarked, working though his share of mincing and chopping with rather more agility than he'd ever demonstrated in Snape's classroom. "Learning from someone who doesn't hold a grudge against you for breathing. Or the utter opposite, in your case. You always were his favourite."

"I don't know why, really," Draco shrugged, scouring out the original cauldron and replacing it with a larger copper one. "I wasn't exactly the most pleasant child." 

"I don't think he cared for 'pleasant', particularly," Harry replied slowly. "He was loyal, and he cared for your mother, definitely. And perhaps he felt badly for you, knowing you had no control over the situation, really. Maybe even saw a bit of himself in you." 

"Maybe so," Draco agreed, shoving back his fringe off his pinkening face as he bent over the cauldron, stirring all the faster. "But I don't care to ask him about it, not at this late date. Let sleeping Snapes lie, I say." 

"Exactly so," Harry nodded vigorously. "Couldn't agree more." 

"Right, then. There, that one's finished. Next up is what, Harry?" 

"Says here it's 'Quelling Cream, for those Impertinently Ill-Timed Urges'. Seriously, Draco? What even is that?" 

"Boner breaker," Draco replied, smirking. "All the knowing lads on the Quidditch teams will be using it regularly, if they're not already, Harry. See? The things you learn, right?" 

"The things you learn," Harry echoed, shaking his head over the instructions for a cream he'd have been applying every damn day, if only he'd known it existed. "Fucking prudes on the Governor's Board and those bloody Broom-Over Parent types. You'd think they want the kids to learn useful things like this, right? But no, no. It's always and ever them going on about how the children have to be 'protected'--as if shagging weren't something everybody does anyway!" 

"Yes." Draco yanked a delicate crystal wand out of his holster and donned his goggles with a disgruntled snap of the rubbery strap. "And then those same kids end up in Spell Damage at bloody two o'clock of the morning, complaining of burning boils on their bollocks and wondering why." 

"Well, they won't when we're though with them, Draco," Harry stated grimly, handing over a huge handful of fiddlehead fern. "Trust me on that." 

"Fuck no, and I, for one, am looking forward to it. Ta, Harry."

"My pleasure." 


	4. Saturday Evening

“You’ve not asked me yet about the centaurs, Harry,” Draco remarked, tightening his arm about Harry’s waist. “Or the lessons covering Magical Beings at all, really. Are you not curious?” 

They were sat close together upon their particular favourite bench in the far end of the castle’s knot garden, a lovely and very heavily weather-charmed place that had very likely been the handiwork of Rowena Ravenclaw, back in the days of yore. 

Both Harry and Draco were fond of it, tucked away as it was around quite a few twisty corners and nestled in the sheltered lea of several mostly unused smaller towers, thus mostly ignored and abandoned by Hogwart’s inhabitants. The Elves, though, kept it up nicely and Harry had learned from chatter in the faculty lounge that Snape had been a regular visitor, gathering up various herbs as they came ready to be harvested for his ingredients store. It was particularly pleasant to visit on a chill dank January evening in Scotland, being charmed always to be balmy and warm and sweet-scented.

“Mmm.” Harry adjusted his head, realigning his cheekbone so it fit more comfortably against Draco’s shoulder, and focussed his gaze upon the opposing bench to theirs, the aged marble violet-shadowed in the gathering dusk. The scents of thyme and germander, hyssop and costmary gently assailed his nose, and he inhaled them with appreciation, his heavy lids drifting down behind the shelter of his smudged specs lenses. 

“...Harry?” 

“Ah,” Harry bestirred himself, blinking to clear his vision as the dusk fell further to a motley of twilit greys and purples. “Them.”

He didn't feel much compelled to continue. They’d had themselves a very hectic day, in the end, what with the rapid spate of brewing and subsequent charms work and he was feeling more than a little shattered. How centaurs got their ends away wasn’t a particularly high level concern at the moment. 

“...Harry.”

“Um." Harry forcibly blinked himself awake again, though it was bit like fighting insidious treacle. "No, actually. I rather hoped you might teach the students about them. The Beings.” 

“What?” Draco sounded vaguely shocked; Harry felt him staring down at his head. “But I’m only here for the first session, love. You’ll need to be prepared to discuss that, you know. I can’t do it for you, much as I’d like.” 

“No, I know,” Harry frowned and nodded slightly, knocking his specs astray on his nose in the process. Sighing, he lifted a hand to right them and shoved it through his fringe after, giving his fading scar a hasty rub. “And I will be, no fear. It’s just not something I know much about anyway and there’s still quite a fair bit of revisement I have to do yet to prepare for this. You’ve given me a grand amount of material. McGonagall’s insanely strict, of course.” 

“Well, of course she is,” Draco said immediately. “I can’t imagine her not being. This is the first time in positively ages that Hogwarts is even offering anything on the topic. She’s likely had her tartan knickers in a permanent twist from the moment the Governor's Board approved it. Well before, even, just from lobbying for it.”

“I’d say!” Harry grumbled. “And then she picked on me to teach it, of all the unfair things! I don’t even know what she was thinking, doing that.” 

“Now, Harry, we’ve been over this,” Draco replied kindly, giving Harry’s waist a squeeze and patting his hip under his work robes. “There’s no use fussing; it is what it is. But you should have at least a cursory knowledge about Beings such as centaurs and mermaids under your belt before next week. Harpies, too. It’s integral to your lesson on choices about reproduction, I think. You really can’t avoid it.” 

“Tell me, then,” Harry suggested, closing his weary eyes again as the shadows lengthened invitingly. “I never really knew anything about them, you know. Other than wondering, here and there, as to how they even existed. I mean, once you’ve met Firenze you don’t dare question their actual existence, of course. You just sort of wonder how it came about. The horse-man bit. Man-horse-thing. Or maybe you don’t, I don’t know.” 

“Half horse, half man, you mean?” Draco laughed softly. “First off, it’s not ‘half-man’ at all, it’s ‘half-Wizard’. And secondly, I am sure you’ve heard tell of Animagi, Professor Potter? Perhaps even have known a few through the years?” he asked archly.

“Oh! Of course!” Harry sat upright abruptly, twisting about to stare at Draco. “Bloody hell, I didn't even think of that!” 

“It was rather a very long time ago, with Centaurs,” Draco smiled, “so you wouldn’t, necessarily. Satyrs, Mermaids, Sphynx and Harpies too. But Wizarding folk have also been around for all of that very long time, Harry. We may look like Muggles but we really, really _aren’t_ , quite.”

“Yes, I sort of twig that part,” Harry said, not unironically, and only glowering a little, “but Binns didn’t spend a lot of time going on about Neolithic Wizarding-kind. He’s more an endless Goblin Wars sort of bloke...er, ghost.” 

“Hermione never filled you in, then?” 

“No,” Harry humped a shoulder, settling back against Draco’s welcoming arm. “No time for that, sadly; she was too busy keeping us all alive. I really didn't know much at all about being a Wizard, Draco. Still don’t, rather. The finer points, I mean. The history. The _pre_ -history, if it’s as you say.” He chuckled ruefully. “Wish I had. Would’ve made for a lot more interesting course.” 

“No, of course you don’t. Forgive me, Harry,” Draco begged, dropping a swift kiss on Harry’s rumpled hair. “I didn’t mean to sound condescending, you know.” 

“You’ve not,” Harry said, smiling. “I know I’ve got gaps to fill yet and that’s alright. I’ve all my life to learn, right? I just never thought that shagging would be one of those gaps--at least not some special sort of Wizarding shagging! We seem to manage well enough, we two.” 

“All Wizarding shagging is ‘special’, Harry,” Draco replied seriously. He cupped Harry’s chin and raised it gently so that their eyes met. “All of it. Some of it, most of it, really, is just for fun and pleasure, and then some of it is for the purposes of producing progeny. Those are two very separate things indeed, mind. But all of it is _special_. We have advantages that Muggles simply don’t and our Muggleborns need to be taught of them. Just as you should have been and weren’t, unfortunately.” 

Harry blinked; the grey gaze was smokey and troubled, and the evening had truly fallen, the breeze palling into a shivery Highlands damp chill. He shook himself slightly, glancing quickly up at the first stars twinkling into view. The marble bench had grown cold under his bum and he realized he was a bit stiff from standing over a work table for nearly all the day. 

“Right, well. At least I know that bit now, yeah?” he said, reaching for a cheerier note as he grasped at Draco’s hand and kissed the knuckles he smoothly folded over his own. “Which means I can fix it, the gap.” He kept hold of the hand, giving it a little tug as he rose swiftly to his feet. “Come on, you. I s'pose I can manage a few more hours of studying magical sex lore. You can tell me all about it inside, over a cuppa.”

But it wasn’t to be, the chat over the quiet cuppa. They didn’t have the opportunity to discuss further the intriguing details of ancient and pre-historical love-smitten/lust-driven Animagi and Metamophagi for there was an urgent summons awaiting them from the Headmistress, delivered personally by one of the Hogwarts Elf staff. 

“Misters Potter and Malfoy, please to report at once to Headmistress’s office!” The Elf confronted them at the entrance to Harry’s suite. “She is much inclined to be peevish!” 

“‘Peevish’?” Draco echoed, staring. “But she was in fine fettle at dinner. Quite pleasant, really. Has something happened since?” 

“I do not know, Mister Draco!” the Elf moaned miserably, grasping at his ears and yanking on them with force. He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled sharply. “But she is pacing and she is calling for yet more chamomile tea and she is waving about a letter with a seal from the Ministry and she is calling Mincie to come at once and Mincie is being sent off to bring her Misters Professors Harry and Draco and Mincie is now here, calling on Misters Prof--”

“Yes, yes, we understand!” Harry stepped in hastily. “We’ll go immediately, Mincie. Do leave go your ears! Nose--whatever! Just stop pinching yourself; it must smart. Come on, Draco, let’s go.” 

“Botheration,” Draco growled and followed after Harry as he turned about to make haste back down the corridor to the landing. “It’s always bloody something else here, isn’t it?” 

He jogged a few steps to catch up. Mincie vanished ahead of them, whisking themselves round a corner. 

“It’s madness. How do you ever stand it, Harry?” 

“It’s just that way, teaching.” Harry glanced over his shoulder, smiling as Draco drew level, their robes swishing together as they hurried along. “If everything’s not a constant state of uproar then you know there’s something terribly wrong. You grow accustomed, believe me.” 

“Huh,” Draco laughed darkly. “The war must’ve been terribly helpful for you, then. On-the-job training, I mean. The DA and all.” 

“Hah! It’s no different from your Spell Damage, really, when you consider it. Maybe not bollocks boils at arse o’clock but there’s probably the same degree of weeping and whinging. Kids are volatile. And so's McGonagall, these days! Come on; nearly there now. Faster!” 

Slightly breathless from sprinting, they began the climb up the stairs to the office of the Headmistress. The gryphons didn’t even trouble them for the password, but simply strained upon their stoney plinths back out the way so as to give them more room to rush up the twisty spiral. 

“We’re here, Minerva!” Harry announced as they burst through the door, barely pausing to rap. "Sorry it took so long!"

“Gentlemen! What on earth ever took you so long to arrive?” McGonagall demanded in almost the same breath as Harry, speaking over him and whipping the door open wide even as Harry tried to knock upon it. He nearly tripped up, only saving himself--and Draco--with a last minute feint born of years of Quidditch practise. “Come in, come in, and never mind that!" McGonagall urged, beckoning. "Do cease faffing about, Harry; it's ridiculous. You simply must read this--this scurrilous piece of cursed parchment!” 

“Merlin, but what ever is the matter, Minerva? Has something horrible happened?” Harry demanded, Draco dogging his heels as they both crowded around McGonagall, peering at the document she was waving so furiously. “Has someone died? Is the school alright?” 

“No, no,” McGonagall shook her head instantly, setting her tartan bowed hat bobbling, “nothing like that. It’s this, right here.” Her nostrils flared in outrage, she again shook the letter she was clutching right before theirs with a flap and flurry. “This abomination right here! Bloody Selwyn sent it over, that interfering old biddy he is!”

“Who’s?” Harry began. 

“Selwyn? Really? Huh.” 

But Draco forestalled him, taking it upon himself to accept the Ministry stamped Owl McGonagall thrust in their general direction and promptly scanning it over.

“Old Sarky Selwyn himself? But I thought he’d long since retired from the Wizengamot.” 

“Pfft! That old pillock?” 

McGonagall sniffed loudly. She turned and stomped away from them. 

“Not bleeding likely," she went on, primly taking a seat behind her massive desk. "He’s been mouldering away on that bench of his these last fifty years and never done anyone a good turn whilst his arse has been warming it! But, yes. Sawkwright Selwyn has dared to send this to me, just this evening. He’s used his position on the Ministry Educational Advisory Committee and leant up hard upon the Hogwarts Governor's Board and now he’s the utter gall to interfere _directly_ in what’s purely a Hogwart’s instructional matter. That vault robber! That blood-sucking tick of a sorry excuse for a Wizard!” 

“Ahem. Oh bugger.” Draco meanwhile had read through the entire missive rapidly, his expressive eyebrows soaring and lowering in turn. “I--I say! This _is_ purest evil, isn’t it?” 

“Well?” Harry asked him impatiently, coming over to tug at his sleeve. “What’s it say?” 

“It says...hmm.” Draco paused, frowning. “No, no, I can understand exactly why you’re angry, Headmistress. It says, Harry, that the Governors want you to teach Sexual Relations primarily using something called ‘Gimmickals’. They appear to be some sort of Owl Order products.” 

“‘Gimmickals’?” Harry echoed blankly. “What in Merlin’s name are those?”

“They’re the latest craze, that’s what,” McGonagall interjected sharply. “The Wizarding primary schools all use them now, apparently, to reward the little ones for learning their basics. Exploding gold stars, candy wands and whatnot--a full step-down in quality from anything our dear Wheeze's has on offer, and now that unbearable bore wants to inflict them upon our students here at Hogwarts. Ours! Hardly appropriate, I say. Entirely unnecessary, say I!” 

“But exactly what are they?” Frowning, Harry asked again, no more enlightened than before. “Draco?” 

“They are little prizes. Meant for the very young tots. Toys, really. Like the trading cards that come with Chocolate Frogs, Harry? Sugar quills and play wands and those miniature charmed broomlets you see the Firsties racing with in the courtyard when they first arrive,” Draco answered distractedly. “They soon enough set them aside to get on with real lessons, I imagine.”

“Just so,” McGonagall chimed in sternly. “Go on, then.” 

“Right. Childish things, Gimmickals are. Poor spellwork and shoddy materials, too. Periodically I’ve had to extract them from nostrils or Unstick some poor child’s teeth, when St Mungo’s has me rostered in A&E on the odd weekend. But here in this Owl it states--oh. _Merlin_. It states the ‘Gimmickals employed at Hogwarts School must be marketed as 'lesson-oriented' and of practical function. They are to augment and replace any other aids to primary instruction, by order of the MEAC, effective as of receipt of this notification. Catalogue included. Order immediately for priority Owl delivery prior to start of Term.’” 

“ _What_?” Harry exclaimed, appalled. "But they can’t just--no! Just no!”

“Exactly!” McGonagall harrumphed. “That ruddy old fool wants you handing out real, actual--”

“Shagging aids,” Draco finished flatly, handing the letter back to McGonagall with a sneer of distaste. “Sex toys. But still comical ones, apparently." He flipped through the included catalogue, scowling down upon the luridly glossy pages as he went. "Faugh! Jokes, really. But real enough, despite that. This is an insult, Headmistress. A terrible insult. A blow to the integrity of Hogwarts School itself.” 

“Don’t I know it! Selwyn was always a knob-end of the highest order,” McGonagall stated, grimly accepting the offensive catalogue as well. “Really, I should have expected something like this. I thought all was moving along entirely too smoothly with this change in curriculum, and, well, it appears that my hunch was unfortunately correct. This is a burr in the bristles indeed.” 

Folding her lips thin, she tucked the letter beneath her blotter and waved them over to the set of visitor’s chairs. 

“Right, then. Be seated, you two. Tea, I think, is called for. Do be mother, Draco, whilst I explain this to Harry before Poppy, Irma and Filius arrive. He’s not to know, I’m sure. I don’t believe he’s ever had the misfortune to encounter Selwyn whilst he was still at the Ministry. Selwyn always did shy away from the Auror department, that scoundrel. Afraid of you lot, likely."

“Of course,” Draco agreed readily, taking up the pot from the tray on the small table between the two chairs “My pleasure, ma'am.” 

“No,” Harry shook his head, following Draco over to subside unhappily into one of the chairs. He stared at McGonagall, brow wrinkling. “I haven’t met him, not that I recall. Certainly not to speak to. But wasn't there a Selwyn who was a Deatheater once? I rather thought he’d died some time ago.”

“Indeed,” McGonagall scowled. “There was.” 

“One of Sarky’s sons,” Draco said, busily doing the pouring out as requested. “Second eldest, I believe. There’s any number of his sprog; the old man’s had four spouses.”

“Merlin!” 

Draco nodded. McGonagall’s tea, he noticed, was chamomile, whilst he and Harry were given a nice Oolong, all out the same pot. Smiling at the Elves’s fancywork, Draco added the requisite sugar and splash to Harry’s, sending over Headmistress her ‘lemon, one sugar, thank you, Draco’ cuppa first.

“A large family, then?” Harry asked curiously, blowing carefully at his tea. He took a cautious sip. “Um. Like the Weasley’s?” 

“On the surface, perhaps. But nowhere near as happily wed as your Weasley's are, love. Selwyn has quite a few children, and by several partners,” Draco answered, fixing up his own cuppa. “Immensely wealthy, he is, and can well support them all, I daresay. Exceedingly ancient lineage, one of the Twenty-Eight; Selwyns have been influential in Wizarding society since time immemorial. Father quite wanted him to throw in his lot with Voldemort but he never could quite pin Sarky down. Knowing old vulture.”

“He’s not, actually,” McGonagall corrected, setting down her cup with a snap. “He’s rather more of a blithering prat than most people suppose. Pots and pots in the family vaults so all the fools follow after him, naturally. But Sarkwright himself? Hah! Easily led but never easily cornered; that’s his one gift. If one might call it a ‘gift’,” she snorted. "Pah."

“Really?” Draco raised an eyebrow. “Now Father always did say he was a clever man. You know, what with the never quite committing to the Dark Lord’s cause but never quite not, either. Said he played both sides and to a purpose.” 

“Clever is as clever does,” McGonagall snorted. “Sarky himself isn’t political; couldn’t commit to a cause if you paid him a million galleons. Far too much brain-work involved in that! One son was indeed a Deatheater, Harry. But one of his other sons plumped down on the side of the Order, just so you know, and Sarky all the while claimed to not know a thing about the doings of either of them.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, really,” McGonagall snapped. “He has never been quite to be trusted, that man. One never knows which way he’ll jump and even though it’s always the wrong way, he still manages to come out smelling of an attar of roses, the rat.”

“Oh, yes? Hmm.” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a lucky chap, really.” 

“Yes,” McGonagall agreed grimly, glowering down at her cup. “He is. Stupidly so. He’s also a terrible busybody; always has his nose in where it’s not wanted. The Minister for Magic’s closest advisors have long wanted him and his Galleons where they could plainly see him and so they appointed him a Member of the Educational Advisory several years back.”

“I was wondering about that,” Draco commented. “Seemed an odd move on Shacklebolt’s part.” 

“Not odd at all,” McGonagall replied sharply. “Just an outright error of judgement on the part of the advisors, that’s all. Poor tactics. Something I could have told them had they ever bothered to ask me, or anyone else who knows Selwyn personally. But they didn't, of course. Why ask some silly old cow who just happens to run the premier Wizarding school in Britain, right?”

“Personally?” Draco questioned quickly. “Oh right, from your own school days.” 

“He was quite a few years ahead of me, but there were rumours a’plenty,” McGonagall grimaced. “With quite a lot of truth to them. Misuse of Felix, Muggle abuse, things of that nature. Worse than that, too. But never proven, more’s the pity. He's a bad egg, Sarky is, and slippery with it. Always has been.”

“Ew,” Harry said, quietly. “Wanker.”

“Yes, precisely. Still, Sarky’s involvement with Hogwarts has been mostly peripheral--he’s no real authority at all, of course, not unless the Governors allow it--but it’s also always been an outright annoyance. He fancies he’s a knowing one, you see, and he ruddy isn’t. Likes to issue out silly orders we faculty have no way of following through on and then whinge when his ideas prove impractical--as they always do, trust me.”

“Hmm, that’s a bit rough,” Harry observed, glancing between McGonagall’s sour face and Draco’s stern one. “You know, I rather think I don’t like the idea of these Gimmickals right off. This isn’t a joke, what I--excuse me, what _we_ \--will be teaching our students. I don’t want some stupid old Wizard trying to make it into one. It’s going to be difficult enough already.” 

“Hear, hear,” Draco said, nodding. “But can we stop it?” He turned his eyes to McGonagall. “Headmistress, what should we do? Has Selwyn any real power over how Harry is to instruct? I’m hoping not.” 

“Technically he doesn’t. Only the power of the press, unfortunately, if we were to outright refuse,” McGonagall replied, folding her hands neatly together on her desk. “And that might prove quite enough, at least in this case. Sarky is perfectly capable of making a huge fuss, no bones about it. And you both know, or perhaps you don’t, but it is true nonetheless, that our current set of parents and guardians are much influenced by the Muggle ways. Only natural, I think, in the aftermath of the war, but they are a bit like Selwyn at times. Easily led, I mean. Always on about the latest trends and what the Muggles are doing in their schools and plaguing us as to why doesn’t Hogwarts have this or do that? Never thinking about the true weight of responsibility we bear, carrying through on competent instruction for all Wizarding kind, whether born to a strictly Wizarding family or not. It’s a bother, I’m afraid, their constant interference and questioning. But it's not one we can afford to ignore. Nor would I wish to. They deserve their say.”

“Merlin.” Harry slumped in his seat, his tea totally forgotten and gone cold in its cup. “So we have to play along, is what you’re really saying, Minerva? Till Sarky loses interest and bloody goes away.” 

“Blast!” Draco swore softly. “Flanked and outflanked!” 

“I’m afraid so, boys,” McGonagall bobbed her chin. “At least till he moves on to something else. With luck he’ll forget all about these blasted Gimmickals before you have to face the Fourth and Fifth Years, Harry. We can but hope.” 

“And plan,” Draco said tightly. “We must plan some sort of brilliant scheme to divert him. Because Gimmickals cannot be allowed to make our lectures ridiculous; I’ll not stand for it! If they’re to be used as actual learning aids--or even as prizes for knowledge gained and demonstrated--that’s one thing. But I’ll not have this devolving into some giant horrid prank-fest!”

“Me neither.” Harry firmed his chin, turning his gaze back to his beloved and doing his best to look both heroic and reassuring about it. “You’ve put far too much time and effort into that plan of yours, Draco, and it's not going to be ruined, not on my watch. Fine, then. I don't believe just sitting about on our bums, simply waiting for this all to blow over is going to be anywhere near a decent enough plan. We have to do something, damn it.” 

They each turned about to stare at McGonagall, who’d been watching the by-play with interest. Draco spoke first, leaning forward intently and clamping a hand down on Harry's twitching fingers. 

“Ma'am? You seem to know this Selwyn chap best. What will fob him off and let us get on with the job properly?” 

“Oh, ho!” McGonagall produced a sound not unlike the one the Hogwarts Express made when coming upon a station--but ruder. “That boggin bampot, that doaty dobber? He’ll not be diverted, Draco, and you shan’t be able to flummox him so easily, Harry. What you--what we, I am sorely afraid--need to do is cater to his express wishes just this once."

"What?!" Harry exclaimed. "Minerva!"

"Yes. We shall order ourselves a raft of these Gimmickals he so highly touts and have a trial go at it with our older students. But he'll be invited here to enjoy the consequences, mind--and so shall the entire Governor’s Board. It will go horribly awry in a very public manner if I know my own dear students and I want all that interfering lot of busybodies to be right here in situ when that happens. Then, when Sarky's been hustled out of here covered in ignominy, we shall tidy up the aftermath and move along, as planned.” She cackled gleefully, her eyes alight with merciless mirth. "If there's anything Sarky hates, it's bad Press. And that we shall give him--in spades!"

“Ooo, crafty, dear Headmistress,” Draco purred, his face splitting into a feral smile. “That’s divine, really it is. Are you certain you were Sorted properly?” 

McGonagall spared him a twinkle. 

“No, really! That’s bloody brilliant!” Harry whistled through his teeth, grinning. “Imagine the ruckus, the uproar! And the kids will think it scrummy! Half of them are sneaking about and having it off anyway, thinking we don’t notice, right? Imagine landing them with buckets and scads of Muggle rubbers and dildos and whatnot as prizes and it’ll be glorious mayhem. Selwyn will be laughed right off his bloody bench at the Wizengamot for once and for all!” 

“Indeed,” McGonagall stated decisively. “Now, it’s only fair that we let the Prefects in on this. On the QT, naturally. They’ll be the ones doling out Points when the rest of our Seventh and Sixth Year lot inevitably try to find ways and means to indulge in Selwyn’s largesse. Because, really, I think I shall have to loudly insist _he_ be the one supplying these Gimmickals to Hogwarts on trial. Better his Galleons than the school’s, eh? I'm certain the Board will agree to the Owl I shall be sending them this evening, proposing this cost-saving measure. Skinflints that they are.” 

“Oh, yes,” Draco agreed instantly. “That's even better. And I was just struck by a thought? Perhaps we should also invite a few select members of the Press to the occasion? To commemorate it with pictures in the papers, say? Hard to sweep the evidence of disaster under the carpet that way. Not when the entire Wizarding world has seen it with their own bloody eyes. I’m certain Lovegood will be more than happy to write up a column. And Dennis will come, certainly. But not the _Prophet_ \--their people make far too much of Selwyn already. Quite biased, that rag.”

“Definitely,” Harry snickered. “We should do that. A few of the more whingey parents should be invited to attend as well, I think. I have a little list of them I’ll be glad to contribute. I feel they might benefit from seeing the results of their demands in action. Plus, I have my suspicions as to some of their intentions, now that I've learnt of this Gimmickals scheme. There's a bit too much money floating around here, Minerva. Something's bound to be amiss. I'll be flooing Ron, first thing.” 

"Oh, brilliant, Harry, love!" Draco crowed, leaning right over to buss his beloved on the cheek. "You Slytherin, you!" 

"Hush!" Harry blushed, laughing, and ducked away. "It only stands to reason, doesn't it? You said Selwyn's got pots--but maybe he doesn't, really, and this is some sort of scam he's pulling. Hogwarts is very well endowed; it'd be a prime target if you were an elderly scoundrel with far too many sprog and ex-spouses to support in style. Don't you think?"

“Ah!” 

Smiling grimly but smiling all the same, McGonagall sat back in her chair with a relieved huff.

“That’s the spirit, Harry. Draco, you too. I knew I could count on you both to be level-headed about this.”

“But of course, ma'am,” Draco nodded regally. 

"Hear, hear," Harry echoed brightly, eyes alight with a martial glow. "Anything for Hogwarts, Minerva. You know that."

“Excellent. I think that concludes this emergency meeting of ours, gentlemen. Never fear,” McGonagall continued kindly, swiftly rising to her feet and gesturing them gently to the office door. “ _I_ shall be the one informing dear Poppy and Filius of this new and difficult development. I’ll leave it up to you two, however, to sort out exactly what types Gimmickals you’d prefer and how you wish to employ them--or should I say _deploy_ them, gentlemen? We are in sore need of a battle plan as well as a lesson plan. But quickly, mind. We’ve not much time before term begins. Wednesday coming, remember.” 

"Cheers to that," Draco said as he made a business of levering himself elegantly out of his seat. "I'm already anticipating drowning that filthy old rotter in a bleeding deluge of dildos. Good evening, then."

"Yes, count on us, Minerva! Night, now!"

On that final and somewhat viciously victorious note, Harry and Draco took their leave, ducking around corners and moving swiftly alomg the empty halls, all the while muttering between them of how to rapidly obtain specialty Owl post Gimmickals catalogs post-haste and whether or not it was Quidditch to consult George on the choice of the shagging-oriented ones.

It was, they decided. And definitely Harry’s best mates, too, were to consulted, and this evening, as opposed the next day. Ron being the newly appointed Head Auror and all, and Hermione being Hermione. 

The Auror Department would most surely be interested in this latest development. And possibly even a few of the International Wizarding Oversight Bodies, as well. 


	5. Tuesday Night, Late (and also Sunday Morning, Very Early)

“Well!” Draco exclaimed, looking about Harry’s lecture room with great satisfaction several days later. 

He surveyed the stacks of texts for reference, the workstations all ready for brewing, Charms and Transfigurations, and even the series of eye-catching instructional posters that lined the walls between the vaulting high windows, pitch dark and curtained now that the January dusk had truly fallen. 

“I do believe we are quite, quite ready for any exigency. Don’t you?” 

“Definitely,” Harry smirked, glancing up the ceiling with a glint in his eye that boded for future mischief. “If by ‘exigency’ you meant a polite synonym for ‘Selwyn’.” 

“Oh, it is, it is,” Draco chuckled, coming over to wrap an arm about Harry’s waist. “Old Sarky, he shan’t know what struck him, I think; it’ll be a great lark. Hmm, delicious thought, that. Right, then. Ready for bed, Harry? We’re rather in need of a good night's sleep before Hades breaks bounds. Lectures begin all too soon, bright and early. Well...this first one,” he smirked. “It’ll be something of a shocker, right? So, rest _is_ required, oh Great Harry Potter. I insist.” 

“Yes, please.” Harry quickly followed his beloved out the door. “That sounds delightful, really,” he added, stifling a yawn. “I’m flat on my face, nearly.”

“Pity,” Draco chuckled, catching hold of Harry’s hand, his eyes glinting amusement. “I can’t be kissing your face if it’s on the floor, now can I? Come along, do.” 

They struck out down the corridor and navigated the landings and stairs with absentminded ease, not saying much more along the way. Which was fine with Harry, actually. 

Harry was truly shattered, in fact. Bone-weary and brain-full. It had been a monumental task all in itself, just simply reading through all of Draco’s exacting lessons and doing his best to digest them most fully. 

For Healer Malfoy was dead on the mark: Harry Potter, Muggle-raised till he was eleven, and thereafter in a fight for his life every year until Voldemort was finally defeated, had never had much, if any, exposure to the intricacies and peculiarities that comprised Wizarding shagging. Draco had called it, and in the nicest way possible. And, being himself, he’d gone and done what he did best by piecing it all together, from lube spells to protection charms to pre-historical Animagi, shagging their brains out. 

It was all there in Draco’s curriculum, clearly, and thoughtfully, and, above all, sensibly laid out.

Shagging itself, for one, was not confined to the merely physical plane. Sometimes Wizarding folk got their ends away otherwise. Charms, spells and potions could produce the same feelings of euphoria and release that a good wank could, or so Harry learned, and that applied across all the many and varied genders and so forth. 

Wizarding sexual relations were truly magical and bore little to no resemblance to Muggle, historically. 

The first thing Draco’s lessons advised him of, of course, was to toss any misbegotten Mugglish concepts of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ straight out the window. Or Vanish them, rather. That being cleared up, there were several sub-lectures that provided solid information on how Wizardingkind perceived themselves and their pleasures; these mostly for the benefit of the Muggleborn. Also included, of course, their extremely curious--to a regular old Muggle, say--methods and means of going about the act of reproduction, which were a whole world’s worth of difference from the scant ‘facts’ and hearsay Harry had learnt by the wayside from his cousin’s chatter with his mates, whilst still spending summers amongst the Muggles as a youngster and then as a growing teen. 

Hermione, Harry determined, had indeed known of all this, despite being fully of Muggle parents and with nary a Wizarding ancestor in sight. 

He simply couldn’t imagine her _not_ , in fact, even though on the surface she and Ron resembled some of the ‘typical’ Muggle couples Harry had noticed here and there, in London and Surrey. But Ron was of course a Pureblood and had been raised at the knee of Molly Weasley, she of great practical and Wizarding knowledge of all sorts, and Harry had no trouble believing that anything Hermione hadn’t managed to pick up from her never-ending reading list before the end of the war, she’d absolutely teased out of Molly after. Nothing stopped his best mate in her quest to know things, and that would absolutely be a thing she'd want to know all about.

But she’d not shared it. It wasn’t exactly a subject they’d ever really chatted about, not even during those endless days spent camping. 

Perhaps out of deference to Harry’s privacy, or more likely because there’d simply never been the time to spare, back when they were teens together, what with Voldemort looming and Horcruxes to locate. Then, afterwards, when they’d all unexpectedly survived and moved on to their post-war lives, she might very well have presumed Harry had learnt enough on his own.

She’d never said so much as ‘boo’ to a goose when Harry and Draco had taken up together, Merlin knew, and of course Ron hadn’t either. Not that Hermione would ever share his awful Uncle Vernon’s horrible sentiments, Harry was sure, but more because she’d already well-internalized that it was perfectly normal for Wizarding-kind to love--and shag, if they so desired--whomsoever they pleased, no questions asked, ta very much. 

It wasn't a topic Harry would be quizzing her on, certainly. In fact, he’d not even thought to question his own understanding before McGonagall had handed him this rather startling assignment of teaching Hogwarts students Sexual Relations. He and Draco had been mutually attracted, and very strongly, and it had seemed pretty natural to Harry, all along, their falling in love with each other and the exceptionally satisfactory shagging that eventually resulted. He’d not fretted over it, not really. Indeed, he’d assumed he was pretty knowledgeable about the old SR, actually! Bit of shock to discover he wasn’t, at all. 

Oh, he’d certainly understood the surface mechanics, yes indeed, but the sub-layers? The meat of it, what it meant? Oh, no. Not really. 

“Harry,” Draco had said to him, just a few nights before, Saturday--or had it been Sunday, very early?--but not long after the news of Selwyn's scandalous scheme had been delivered them, “you’ve still not asked me about the centaurs and the mermaids. Weren’t you wondering, even a little? I don’t want you walking about with questions in your head about the process of foaling human-headed babies or wondering if the Merpeople birth their children inside bubbles, you know. I’d feel a failure. As a Healer, and as your professional consultant on this course.”

“Hmmm,” Harry had mumbled, rearranging himself so he was rather comfortably tucked up against Draco, and drawing the man’s free arm across his torso with a pleased sigh. “Er...maybe? A bit?” 

Their shagging that night had been rather exciting. McGonagall’s Oolong tea was a quite bracing brew, apparently, and they’d both been ramped up by scheming how to turn tables on Selwyn and be rid of the damnable Gimmickals. He and his lover had stripped off in a matter of moments after returning to Harry’s quarters and had been hard at it in a heartbeat. The wallpaper would never be precisely the same in the tiny corridor that led to the bedroom, Elves' amazing housekeeping magic or no.

Harry had sighed, lips curved in a lingering smile, and nearly fell asleep in the short time it took Draco to reply. 

“Hmph! Tsk!” Draco had tutted reprovingly from behind him, but Harry could tell with a glance over his shoulder he wasn't really brassed off. He’d seemed far too relaxed and blissed out to be truly irked. Just like Harry. “I bloody well called it, I guess.” 

“Er...sorry?” Harry had offered up, pressing his bum cheeks back against Draco’s thighs in a sort of snuggling apology. Or maybe a distraction. He had been really quite sleepy and having yet another intense bout of discussion wasn't really a feature, not in his view. “Hmm. Been busy, rather.” 

“Right. Well, that bit’s in the reading, with diagrams. You’re all set, as long as you actually do read it, love.” 

“Yes, dear,” Harry had nodded his head dutifully. “First thing, I promise you.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Draco hummed, dropping a quick kiss on Harry’s head. “Right, right.” 

He’d fallen silent, sighing lightly. Harry felt the rise and fall of his chest against his back and quirked an eyebrow up, curiosity piqued. 

“What?” he had asked finally, driven ever farther from sleep by it. “Draco? Something wrong?” 

Draco had sighed again, the huff of it ruffling through Harry’s hair. 

“Look here, Harry,” he’d replied, terribly earnestly. Harry’s ears pricked up in instant response, a faint surge of anxiety pickling his gut. “It’s nothing wrong. It’s more I’m concerned--and have been for some time, really--that you don’t realize, darling, just how much our innate magic does for us here, in bed. Whilst we’re making love.” 

He shrugged expressively; Harry, craning his neck ‘round to see, caught him sending a quick glance down at their nude and quite satiated bodies hidden beneath the sheet and duvet. 

“Or, you know, having it off with each other. Fucking, to be blunt.” 

“What, _fucking_?” 

Harry’s eyebrows went skyrocketing; he promptly wrenched himself about fully, just so he could confront Draco directly instead of continuously peeping over his shoulder. “ _Us_ , fucking?” he repeated, with a final flail of bed clothes. “Ours? What on earth would magic have to do with _that_ , for Merlin’s sake? I mean, we do--we have--we are! Often!” 

“Oh...I was correct, then,” Draco sighed, not sounding very happy about it. His shoulders slumped, Harry presumed with disappointment. “Hmm. Well, let me attempt to explain it to you. Alright, Harry?” 

“Um...alright?” Harry replied dubiously. “I think I understand the lube spell now, you know, if that’s what you meant by that. But I suppose if you really want to, it’s fine with me.” 

He gazed at Draco, searching his face for any hint of his possibly trying on a joke. But Draco looked as deathly serious as any accredited Healer ever possibly could be, even _sans_ his lime-green kit and those bloody goggles. 

“I mean, okay then," Harry felt compelled to continue. "Alright. If you really think it’s really necessary to talk about us,” he went on slowly, suspiciously. “Because, you know, I don’t quite see the need.” 

“I do,” Draco had said, firming his jaw. “Very much so, Harry. I’ve been concerned that you still believed that we were just like any two Muggle men, love. We are _not_. We’re Wizards.”

“...Right, yes, so? Wizards, not Muggle. Go on, then,” Harry nodded. “I’m listening.” 

“Nothing against Muggles, of course. But. Wizards, love, are special, as I mentioned before. It’s our innate magic, the force that is in every particle of our bodies, which influences every aspect of our lives, and it means that if we desire someone, some other being, or if we should wish or require a child--again, two very different things, though hopefully connected in some way--we act on it quite differently than Muggles might do. We’ve spells to prevent or encourage procreation, for one. We’ve Charms and abilities to transform our physical forms into entirely different ones--and those can be quite long-lasting. A lifetime, really, for Metamorphagi or Animagi.” 

“Oh, yes,” Harry nodded. Face brightening. “I recall you were saying that, about the centaurs. Not ‘half-man’ at all but ‘half-Wizard’!” 

“Precisely so,” Draco smiled. “And, should you happen to be a Wizard who happens to be an Animagus Water Form, then it rather follows you might _happen_ to desire, perhaps even love, a creature who matches your Form. It happens, Harry. It has been happening, really, even before Wizarding folk began writing these things down. Even the Muggles have remarked upon it, at one point or another. They sometimes mistook us for minor gods back then, but that’s understandable, I suppose. We're not, of course. Far from it.” 

“So,” Harry said slowly, thinking it over aloud, “it’s not just Merpeople, or Centaurs you’re talking about, it’s also the Veela, and Satyrs and Harpies and oh! Maybe the Giants too? All of them are--or were--because some Wizard or Witch, eons ago, fell in love with--”

“Or just fancied madly, and went with their magical Form’s wish to reproduce,” Draco interjected, grinning. “Fish, you know. Always tend to produce rather a lot more fish if left to themselves.” 

“Or simply shagged,” Harry said sternly, eyeing his erstwhile instructor, “and had kids if they felt like it while they were, er, living as their Animagic selves. Right, right. That’s clear, Draco. But what was it you were saying about _us_ , just now? That’s _not_ clear, sorry!”

“We,” Draco murmured, bringing his face right up close to Harry’s. “Are magic. Through and through. Which means we can, should we want to, at some unknown date in the future, have those little ones that I every now and again catch sight of you looking after a bit longingly, Mr ‘I’ve Always Wanted A Real Family’ Potter. Infants, love. It’s a choice we can make, you know, any old bloody time we feel like. And, unlike Muggles, we shan’t need any outside assistance doing so. Being magic and all.”

“Whoa, really?” 

“Well. Yes.” Draco cocked his head quizzically. “Come now. You’ve never been curious about that before? Harry, we know couples who have children. Any number, really. How did you think they came by them?” 

“Er, ah?” Harry flushed. “I...didn’t, really? I mean, if I did wonder, it wasn’t any of my business, you know? People adopt, people have children in, um, other ways, right? Honestly, I hadn’t much thought about it, Draco. And what do you even mean, you ‘catch me looking at babies longingly’? I never said I wanted children!” 

“You haven’t had to _say_ it, Harry,” Draco laughed softly. “It’s written on your face, every single time you’re around anybody’s latest sprog, and I am not a fool, ta ever so.”

“Oh!” Harry’s faint flush went a darker shade. “I suppose you’re right on that. I have been missing the time when Teddy was smaller. He seems just so--so grown-up, lately. I suppose it’s more than just silly nostalgia, huh?” 

“Rather,” Draco snickered. “But it’s not been really convenient for either of us, so I never brought it up. You’ve had your hands full to overflowing, adjusting to professorship after leaving the Ministry, and I’ve been working on establishing the practise outside of St Mungo’s, now that we’ve survived my excruciating residency years mostly intact. I’ve been a bit selfish, maybe, just enjoying the two of us, together.” 

“It’s not selfish,” Harry snapped back instantly. “It’s fine, and I bloody well love it, really. I guess that’s why it’s a bit startling to hear you think I’m gagging after having a brood of children of my own--our own, rather. But truly, Draco.” He shook his head slightly, shrugging. “I’d not ever really thought about the, uh, mechanics of it.The magic, rather.” 

“Yes, and you know who else hasn’t?” Draco asked, eyes glittering with humour. “Your average Muggleborn at Hogwarts, that’s who!” 

“Spot on.” Harry closed his eyes, recalling his agony over Cho Chang, his brief and oft-interrupted affair with Ginny--and his very much not-then-acknowledged pashes for Oliver Wood and poor Cedric. He opened them after a long moment, to gaze up at the one who’d always managed to garner his undivided attention, man and boy. “And you’re right, I think. Maybe I do want a few kids, after all. But not now. Not yet.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Draco smiled. “I thought so. Not now, not yet. We’ll talk about it when we get there, Harry, whenever that may be. For now, though, I just wanted you to really think about how being a Wizard is quite different, as in absolutely _not the same_ when it comes to shagging. Because the ones coming from Muggle backgrounds, even if they’re so fortunate as to have any inkling of it from either parent, or guardian, perhaps, are not likely to know the full picture. Plus, it’s brilliant for the ones from families where the parents are entirely Wizardkind too, you know? They need to understand there’s differences in perspective, in experience. Which is something we never had, certainly.”

“ _Yes_.” Harry rolled his eyes in agreement. “Bloody well right we didn’t!” 

Draco grinned, looking chuffed. 

“It’s our magic, Harry, that brought us together in the first place, you understand? It’s that innate sense of knowing, of history, of being two parts of a whole. Mine wants you, craves you, even. And yours seems to feel the same. When I first came back from France and we stumbled across one another at Blott’s I knew it even then. I couldn’t _not_ know it; the feeling was so strong.”

“Did you?” Harry wrinkled his brow, thinking back. “I was nervous, you know. I remember perspiring pails--or feeling I was, rather. Damp palms, bloody pants too tight, all that. Squirming around in my seat in that little cafe we went to to have a coffee. But I couldn’t look away from you. You were just _so_. So _fascinating_ , I guess. And fucking _fit_. Grrr!” 

Growling, he made a grab for Draco’s upper arms, aiming for and successfully landing a short hard kiss on his lips. 

“Bloody still are, you know,” he stated fiercely, drawing back to smooth Draco’s fringe off his forehead and staring him straight in the eyes. “I look at you sometimes and think I’ll fucking die if we don’t shag in the next ten seconds! It was pure hell when you’d come home in the mornings after shift and I’d have to run off immediately to the stupid Ministry. Hated that, I did. Hated all of it, in the end, really.” 

“Me, as well, Harry. Oh Merlin, me as well,” Draco replied, his voice deep and throaty, He nosed his way into Harry’s mussed mop of hair, pressing cheekbone to cheekbone and closing his eyes tightly. “I ached for you, that day. Still do. I don’t think that’ll ever change.” 

“Mmm, no, not for me either.”

“Good, because I’d’ve crawled across that bedamned cafe table to get my tongue down your throat if I’d dared.” Draco’s eyes glittered; he looked very fierce for a moment. “Glad you felt the same. Or as good as.” 

“Felt like I’d been bludgered, honestly,” Harry admitted. “Just from watching you. Wanting to get my hands and my mouth and my everything all over your everything. Felt a bit mental, really. Never had I ever wanted anyone that much, Draco.” 

“Merlin, no. I was just the same. Come here, you.” 

“Ye--!” 

“We're still just plain lucky, though, magic or not,” Harry remarked some moments later, enjoying the feeling of being enfolded, warm and cozy beneath the layers of bedclothes. He smacked his swollen lips a little, relishing the aftertaste of a really brilliant snog. 

“Mmm?” 

“Yes, we are,” Harry said insistently. “There’s so many things that could’ve ruined it. We might never have found each other again, for one. I mean, I never saw you at all, not for years and years, even though Teddy would chatter on of you and your mum, after some of his hols visits.” He shivered, clenching his teeth for a moment. “Ugh! That’s such an awful thought for me. Us not being together. I can’t stand it.” 

“Then don’t think on it,” Draco said promptly. “Because it’s not happened that way. We are together. Thanks first to you, of course, my sweet silly Saviour, and then thanks to us both being in the City at the same time, at the right time, really. For us. Which you might claim was dumb luck but _I_ say was our magic, naturally. It’s a force, and it’s bloody insistent. Like gravity. Or magnetics.” 

“Oh, ‘naturally.’” Harry flapped a careless hand, a devilish look in his eye as he teased. “Well, I must admit it helps rather a lot when you’ve a handy spell to do the job when desperately in need of lube. I can't even imagine doing some of the things we’ve done with a Muggle bloke! Ouch!” 

“Oh, they manage somehow,” Draco said dryly in his best Healer’s voice. “Never doubt the determination of people, Harry. They want to shag, they’ll find a way, no fear.”

“S’pose so,” Harry said, yawning again, this time more insistently. “Well. I’ll take your word for it about us Wizards being different, given you’re a Healer and all, love. And I promise I will do my revision--tomorrow, though. Not tonight.” 

“Not tonight, no,” Draco agreed. “I think we’ve done rather enough tonight already.” He pulled Harry more closely into his arms, smiling. “G’night, love.” 

“G’nigh…t.” 

But that was _before_.

Saturday, late, was it? Or maybe by then it had been Sunday, and terribly early in the morning. Harry shrugged mentally, content in not quite recalling. It seemed ages ago, really, what with all they'd managed to accomplish in the scant hours in between that night and this.

This night at last, the eve of what he hoped would be their great triumph over a whole host of petty evils and, by common unspoken consent, this night it was a quiet disrobing and a fumbling stumble toward bed.

This night, the eve of the students returning to Hogwarts to begin the new term, Harry was again yawning, but ever so widely, his eyes watering behind his specs from all the intensive reading he’d managed, his wrist aching from all the notes he’d scribbled out in the margins of Draco’s lessons tome, and his ears still ringing with the echoes of all the urgent conferences he and Draco had had with Poppy and Filius, George and Minerva, Luna and Ron and Hermione. The preparations for the great and much anticipated public humiliation of one offensively interfering arse, Old Sarky Selwyn, were well underway. And not only just _him_ , the twat. The plot to defraud the Ministry's Education Fund had run deep indeed. Harry grinned through the remnants of his yawn, his face twisting into a feral sneer of anticipation, for a moment looking very Aurorish indeed. 

There only remained to get through it, and then to settle solidly into the exacting rigours of instructing teenagers as to what their magical bodies were capable of when it came to the business of sexual relations. And that would be a rewarding endeavour, really, no matter that he'd railed at it since the beginning. He'd his best friend by his side, and Draco Malfoy was the most brilliant Healer ever to grace the hallowed old halls of St Mungo's, at least in Harry's opinion.They should be grateful they had him, and his remarkable mates. Harry was damned glad to know Poppy agreed. 

“Come on, love,” Draco invited, climbing into his side of the bed and holding the duvet up for Harry. “Your Healer advises a sound night’s sleep. You look near to keeling over. And very odd besides. You alright? Your face is all funny.” 

“Mmm, yes,” Harry said, stifling the umpteenth yaw with his fingertips and diving for his pillow. “M'fine, really. Just knackered. He’s an excellent Healer, mine. Brilliant advice, always. Have I mentioned that recently? I feel as though I may’ve.” 

“A few times, here and there.” Draco chuckled warmly as he arranged himself and then Harry, casting an arm about Harry’s middle and drawing him closer. He bent his head down and kissed Harry’s scar lovingly. “I believe.” 

“It’s true,” Harry smiled. “You know, all that information you and your mates have put together is pretty well brilliant, too. I think I rather understand it all now, the magic in our shagging. The magic we _are_. The bones of it, at least. I think the kids will, too. Especially when you and Poppy say your pieces to them.” 

“They will, no fear.” Draco set his jaw with determination, sounding very fierce. “As soon as we’ve swept all this ridiculously wretched nonsense out of the way. I can’t say I’m not looking forward to _that_.” 

Harry snickered, ducking his head under that chin and laying his cheek against Draco’s breastbone. The reassuring thrum of his heartbeat was instantly calming. He gave a fond pat to it before slinging his arm 'round Draco's trim waist. 

“Yes, love; just so. Go to sleep now, you. Professor Potter says you also require some rest and relaxation, alright? Go to sleep. Morning comes bloody early at Hogwarts, start of Term.”

“Fine. Good night, Harry.” 

“Mmm, ‘night, love.” 


	6. Wednesday Morning (Part One)

The recently converted classroom Harry had been assigned for the purpose of teaching Sexual Relations was crammed to the gills with a collection of persons ranging from the gaggle of giggling Seventh Year Slytherins and Gryffindors mixed (‘Slyfferdors’, as Harry and Draco liked to call them in private) to a clot of specially selected officious parent-types (the sort who spent much of their children’s school careers whinging about nearly everything Hogwarts and always finding fault), and thence to a small coven of reporters and a considerably larger array of Governor’s Board Members ringed 'round behind them. 

Last but not least was Old Sarky himself, accompanied by his personal assistant and also by his very close personal friend G Ploughman Smyte-Lash, ostensibly of the Boston Smyte-Lashes, who was incidentally the owner of The Acme Gimmickal Corporation, Ltd.

Most notably absent was one Healer Malfoy, several Weasley family members and Headmistress McGonagall herself. 

Harry, stood before his lectern, cleared his throat three times before simply firing up a decent Sonorous and bidding everyone quite firmly to shut it. But politely. 

“Now,” he began, when the tumult had quieted, “we are here today to inaugurate the instruction of a most important subject, which has long since been neglected in the Hogwarts curriculum--”

He proceeded to drone on in this fashion for several long minutes, and at one point snapped his fingers and produced, with the aid of several unseen helpers, a compact form of Draco’s lesson plan for every single person present. 

Headmistress had eagerly agreed to this idea, and Draco had been very chuffed by it. Harry, well aware of the amount of herculean effort his beloved, and all the various Healer connexions his beloved had cudgeled into helping him, had put into the thing, had wanted it forefront and center and thus demanded it on behalf of his students. He’d also very much desired that the whinging parent types would be feel far more hesitant to whinge about not being kept fully informed of the curriculum if they were presented the entire damned thing in a very public fashion, and before witnesses. Same went for the Board, some of whom had a nasty tendency to duck responsibility for their decisions. 

He finished his introduction by quickly going about his lovely new classroom, pointing out the mod cons and whatnot, mentioning the impressive array of guest lecturers he’d invited to participate, and then segued smoothly to the meat of the matter: Gimmickals. 

“Now, as some of you may be aware,” he said, smiling gamely at his restive audience, “there has lately been a trend in our Wizarding primary schools to employ a reward system for student learning. This is related to certain Muggle ideas, of course, and therefore considered to be terribly inclusive. Golden Gooey Stickers in star shapes, edible quills, Disappearing Ink biros and other small toys produced by the Acme Gimmickals Company are the most popular of these, by far. At least with our kindergartners. See?” 

Several of the Seventh Years burst out into hoots of derisive laughter and had to be shushed by the adults. All of whom seemed utterly rapt the next moment by the sight of the famous Harry Potter waving his wand with a flourish and producing a shower of the same sort of Gimmickals he’d just mentioned upon the gathered company. 

“Oooh!” the kids said, grasping wildly at the rain of sugar quills and mostly half out of their seats. "Fun!"

“Ahhh!” echoed the adults, hastily whisking the glittery stars off their best meeting robes. “Nooo!”

“Hush!” shushed the Governor's Board, who’d all raised their collective eyebrows at the tumult; some seemed a mite perturbed. “Silence, please!” 

“Annnnd...it’s a winnah!” clearly resounded a voice with very odd foreign accent, quite nasal and strangely wide and flat. Certainly not one heard all that often on the British side of the Pond. Needless to say, it turned a few heads in certain quarters. 

For, driven by the urge to provide clearly audible lessons for all their students benefit, Harry and Draco had possessed the foresight to consult with Professor Flitwick concerning Charming the acoustics of the new classroom space to accommodate all the students, no matter where they might be in the room. As a result--and remarkably convenient to this purpose--there was literally not a single spot where one could not hear or be heard. Excepting the Privacy Booth, of course. 

“See! See! Didn’t I tell you so, Sarky, old man?” G Ploughman Smyte-Lash was heard to further excitedly proclaim, indicating some of the more enthusiastic Slyfferdors tussling and bickering over their take of the prizes. “They love them, they do, the wicked little pissahs! It’s a sure sell! We’ll rake it in, old man. For sure as spitting.” 

“Quite right!” 

Old Sarky bobbed and burbled in his seat, quite wreathed in smiles, and the coven of quite interested reporters clutched their Quik Quills at the ready and crept closer to the pair, noses a’quiver for a developing story and eyes fast stuck on their prey. 

“Best investment of our Ministry Education Fund there is, dear chap,” Sarky went on confidingly, leaning his balding head in near his mate’s ear and apparently not at all realizing private conversations were completely impossible in the SR classroom. “And yes, oodles of lolly! Did I not agree wholeheartedly with you when I threw in my lot?”

“You did, you did, of course you did,” Smyte-Lash said smugly, ignoring the antics of Old Sarky’s personal assistant, as the poor lad tried valiantly to shoo off the Press. “All that moolah’s gottah go somewhere.” 

“Indeed, Plouty,” Sarky beamed. “And what better place than our own vaults?”

“ **BUT!** ” Harry bellowed, casually sweeping his hair back to reveal his scar and swishing his wand through the air in a quick zig-zag motion that effectively Muffliato’d every other sound in the room. “Ahem. That’s not _all_.” 

He glanced about the abruptly quieting room, taking careful note of the position of the reporters in re Sarky and Smyte-Lash, and then the key adjacency of several of the more sapient members of the Board and a tiny scattering of the even peskier parental whingers, lurking near the outer fringes. And smiled broadly at them all, as if immensely chuffed. 

“By no means is that _all_. Oh, no! Thanks to the kind generosity of Mr Sawkright Selwyn and courtesy of his latest personal investment in the Acme Gimmickal Corporation,” Harry purred, “the offices of which are located in an UnPlottable Offshore Area and thus are unburdened by any manner of taxation, our inaugural Hogwarts Sexual Relations class students have been gifted today with sex-themed Gimmickals products specifically appropriate to our curriculum. Isn’t that grand of Mr Selwyn, the Governor's Board and the Ministry Education Advisory? I ask you.” He paused significantly, meeting the pop-eyed gaze of the most senior of the Hogwart’s Board of Governors and dropping the slightest of winks to the _Quibbler_ reporter standing next to him. “How can there be any objection? What a bargain, what a deal! A full _ten thousand_ Galleons worth of Gimmickals delivered here annually! In exchange, of course, for an exclusive supply contract to Hogwarts for the next two decade years to come!” 

“ _ **Whaaaat**_??!” screeched Slyfferdors and several other members of the general audience. 

“Exactly.” Harry bared his teeth in a dazzlingly insincere smile. “What a deal, right? Well done _you_ , Mr Selwyn. Always thinking of the needs of the children. Just...so generous, really. With the Education funds, I meant.” 

Various Hogwarts Governor's Board Members and Minor Whingies went goggle-eyed over this announcement; clearly not all of them had been informed of Selwyn’s intentions for use of a rather significant allotment of the Education Fund. 

The reporter’s coven whipped out their Tiny Cameras as one and snapped any number of incriminating photos, all 'round the room. And Harry's, of course, because he was who he was, after all. 

Every single person in the room--other than Harry--immediately fell to chatting away at high volume, which produced a rather hideous amount of sheer sound. 

“P-Pardon? What did young Potter say just now?” was to be heard during an instance of a split-second of silence, the sort of dead quiet eerie vacuum that always seems to inexplicably occur during noisy large gatherings. “Did I hear him correctly?” 

“I say! Is that even Quidditch?” asked someone else. "Ten thousand for sugar quills? Are they out of their bleeding nuts?" 

“I think he’s said they’re giving away prizes for shagging, Maudie,” another quavery voice sang out, attached to the person of an ancient Witch wearing an enormous hat. She gave her equally elderly friend a knowing nudge, winking a rheumy eye. “You know, Maudie. _Sex toys_.” 

“Yes,” Harry nodded fervently, stepping back up his lectern with purpose, his green eyes gleaming as he watched those Quik Quills hard at work. “Indeed. Our team has thoroughly researched _all_ the Gimmickals Owl Order catalogues available both here and also abroad and has chosen a wide variety of their products as being deemed 'suitable for education'! Thanks again, Governors Board!” 

Harry cast a lightning glance over his shoulder, checking for a tell-tale twitch of the Privacy Booth’s curtain. He and Draco, after some quite heated discussion, had agreed (as in, Draco had acceded that yes, he did have a career as a Healer to think of and, no, perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to have the Malfoy name involved in this very public occasion) that Draco would stay well behind the scenes. 

“Ahem! Moving on!” 

Besides, he and George, Ron, and Hermione had quite a bit of rapid casting to do yet. 

“Students!” Harry continued smoothly, reassured his back-up quad was at the ready, and swivelled a stern but kindly gaze towards the adolescent part of his audience. “It’s now time to assess your base knowledge of Sexual Relations with a little quiz. Are you ready? I’ll be asking a few questions and I’d like you all to raise your hand high when you think you know the correct answer, alright? I’ll be choosing one of you at random so let’s make a good showing, shall we?” 

“Professor! Professor Potter?” shouted out one particularly brash Slyfferdor. “Will there be House Points awarded?” 

“No, Gareth, there shan’t be,” Harry replied, a twinkle in his eye, “because this isn’t a subject in which the size--or amount--of your collective House Points matters. There will, however, be Gimmickals. Right, then. Are you ready?” 

“Yes! Yes! Prizes! Hurrah!” 

“Very well. First question. What spell do you use when you want to be safe and not sorry when shagging? Listen closely now. One, the Universal Lubrication spell, Lubricius. Two, the Universal Protection spell, _Pas des regrets._ Or three, the Universal Preparation spell, Proetoimázo. You have one minute to decide and give me your correct answer!” 

“Er, excuse me…? How dare you expose our innocent children to such--such _deviant_ objects? This is hardly the standard of education I would expect from Britain’s premier Wizarding school! I know I speak for a lot of parents when I say I am appalled!”

Half the coven of reporters promptly turned their attention to the red-faced man who’d risen up from his seat and was shaking his fist at Harry’s lectern.

“Indeed, Mr Cassoweary,” Harry tutted. “Let me make this quick since we are in the midst of an assessment here--kids, you all keep thinking on my question--and I’ll tell you, Mr Cassoweary--”

“Crikey, Father!” A groan issued from the gaggle of students and one was seen to be laying his head on his desk and moaning. “Give it a rest, will you?” 

"Right, just so. Exactly as your Ninian says, Mr Cassoweary,” Harry continued inexorably. “First off, these are _not_ children. They are Seventh Years and they will have or have already reached their age of majority and are fully adults in our Wizarding society. Second--”

“Oh, but--” protested the red-faced man, though he visibly deflated under the scrutiny of his fellows. “That’s not--”

“Second, as educators and as parents, Mr Cassoweary, it behooves us, nay! It is our _duty_ to correct the misbegotten notions of the age of Voldemort and Grindlewald that Wizarding Bloody Purity is acceptable or in any way a rational idea!” Harry went on strongly, jabbing his wand in the direction of the Whingers and side-eying several Members of the Board. A horrified gasp rushed through the company at his mention of the two great Evils of recent history. “No, it is not, and never has been acceptable. We know as a fact, may I remind you, that Wizardingkind has been shagging around for eons and no bones about it! It’s natural and it’s magical and it’s what we are and what we do and no one in a position of authority should ever, ever be claiming otherwise!” 

"Oh! I say!"

Mr Cassoweary fell back in his seat, his face gone the colour of old lichen, whilst the group of parents seated around him made surreptitious efforts to edge themselves away. 

“No, you don't. Not on this, Mr Cassoweary. That's what Healers and Academics are for. Now, to business,” Harry nodded with satisfaction. “Class, do you have an answer to give me? Yes?” he encouraged as a sea of hands rose up waving wildly and subdued shouting ensued. “Yes, yes, I see you do; very good. Alright, you there, Miss Kaur. What’s _your_ choice?” 

“My choice is Number Three, Professor,” Miss Kaur called out, coming up to her full height of not quite three-quarter’s length of an adult broomstick’s length. She was a tiny little Witch and the Star Seeker for Slytherin; ferociously talented and Draco’s absolute favourite in all the matches. “Lubricius and _Pas de regrets_ only address _two_ aspects of sexual relations, sir; sufficient genital wetness and prevention of disease. But the Number Three does it all: prevention, wet _and_ birth control.” 

“Excellent!” cried out Harry, whipping his wand tip up at the ceiling and giving it a dramatic twirl.The curtain of the Privacy Booth twitched again, unnoticed. “And do all of you agree with Miss Kaur, class?” 

“Yeah! Yes! Cheers!” the Slyfferdors roared out as one, and one of the tallest boys--a Gryffindor Beater named Harold--gave Miss Kaur a very careful mate-y slap on her back. “Husnah rules! Husnah rules!” 

“Very well, then,” Harry grinned, bringing his wand down with a slash. “Here’s your first Gimmickal prize, kids!” 

With a dazzling flash of light and a crack that sounded like distant thunder, the upper reaches of the high-vaulted room developed a mysterious glittery gold-toned cloud. And from it, slow at first and then with increasing insistence, came down upon everyone gathered beneath a pelting of tiny rectangular cellophane-encased packets, each embossed clearly with the name ‘Acme Gimmickal Ltd’s Finest Superior Muggle Rubber, Guaranteed to Provide Satisfaction!’ 

“Now, don’t forget to thank Mr Selwyn,” Harry called out as more and more of the packets of condoms assaulted the audience. “This first lot is courtesy of him. That’s 200 Galleons of Muggle condoms for you all, as prizes. Right! Ready for the next quiz question, class?” 

Not minding at all the people shifting about, desperately attempting to avoid the sharp corners of the foil packets, Harry went on with his quiz, quite satisfied with the number of dirty looks Old Sarky and his mate G Ploughman Smyte-Lash were garnering. 

“Say you were intent on pursuing sexual relations with a Muggle, alright, and knew you had to abide by the Statue of Secrecy. Which of these three actions would you take? One, you’d shag the Muggle and Obliviate them afterwards. Two, you’d Imperius the Muggle so they would never dare breathe a word about your encounter. Or three: you’d ensure to use Muggle style contraception and lubricant and be absolutely positive the shagging was consensual all through?” Harry cracked a grin at the students, some of whom were already laughing and only a very few looking completely confused. “Yes, that one’s easy enough, isn’t it? Thirty seconds to think about it.” 

“Ahem! Harrumph!” One rotund Member of the Governor's Board climbed to his feet, waving his stick-wand in the air and batting away a few stray condoms whilst he was at it. “Mr Potter! Are you telling us this--” he gestured to the unceasing shower of sheaths--”cost the Ministry Education Fund for Hogwarts over 200 hundred Galleons? Who, pray tell, authorized this absurd expenditure?”

Harry and Draco had also agreed, and Harry had been most insistent, that he really would be ‘face’ of their rebellion against the shenanigans of Sawkright and company. It would be damn near impossible, Harry had informed Draco when he quibbled, for even the most unctuous and disagreeable of the Wizengamot and the Governor's Board to go against Wizarding’s Saviour, especially as he’d been the one mostly responsible for the capture of Mulciber, just prior to his resignation from the Aurors. 

“Oh, that?” Harry cocked his head, casting Tempus. “Ten seconds, class. It was you, sir. The Governors unanimously agreed to Mr Selwyn’s recommendation that funds be diverted from Hogwarts Library, Infirmary and sport teams and be used instead to purchase large quantities of these Gimmickals. Er, don’t you remember? I’ve the Owl right here, sir, with your signature. Okay, kids!” 

He directed his gaze to the students, once again waving their arms about. 

“Pick me, me, me, me!” “Over here, Professor!” “I know that; it’s so easy!” 

“Yes, it is. Alright. Mr Caractus Dearborn, what is the correct response?” 

“It’s Number Three again, sir,” a beard young gentleman piped up earnestly. “Muggles should always be treated properly and never abused, sir. A Wizard or Witch mustn’t ever use magical force to compel them and only Muggle sexual products are allowed.” 

“Annnd, that’s the ticket! Well done, Mr Dearborn,” Harry crowed, training his wand on the hovering cloud of condom-producing glitter. It changed colour all at once, shading to a lovely vermillion. “Here’s your prize, then, straight from the Limited Specialty Owl Order Catalogue of Acme Gimmickals, Ltd.! Oh, have I mentioned already this UnPlottably-incorporated American company remits absolutely no taxes to any country? On the contrary, we all pay them for the honour of having Acme’s facilities operate within our borders! Huzzah! It’s all profit, profit, profit for its investors. Just as our esteemed Mr Selwyn is currently enjoying!” 

“Did you take that down, Andrew?” one the _Prophet_ people hissed to another. “Straight from the lips of our Saviour!” 

The condoms, which had never quite ceased littering up the landscape, finally ceased. 

“Now, please enjoy these, students,” Harry directed, waving his wand at the ceiling. “Honored guests.” 

The endless rain of condoms finally dried up, the last of them thudding faintly as it bounced off Harry’s lectern. Only to be replaced by an assortment of items that certainly ‘specialty’, being a glorious array of Shrunken but clearly functional tiny dildos, vials of scented, flavoured oils, various racy lingerie and frilly knickers and any number of itty-bitty plugs, harnesses, whips, high-heeled shoes and other implements of a less ‘vanilla’ sexual lifestyle. All available to be scooped up by whoever was quick enough and be used at a later date.

“Go, Team!” howled the Slyfferdors, diving in. “Fantastic!” 

“Merlin!” gasped one Witch and fainted dead away, having been bonked upon the noggin with a vibrating device of unusual design. 

“Wheeee!” Another had her hat turned upside down and held out, grinning madly all the while. “Cheers for the bounty, eh?” 

“Maudie!” her friend chided her. “Leave some for the kids, will you?” 

“This! This is an outrage!” 

The Head of the Governor’s went well-nigh apoplectic, and spontaneously unleashed a spell that Petrified Selwyn and his mate where they sat. 

“You villains! You thieves! I always knew you knew your son was a Deatheater, Sarky, but this--this is unforgivable! Seize them, I say!”

“Capital,” Harry murmured, standing well back from his lectern and looking about him at the mayhem. “Absolutely brilliant.” 

The coven of Press had meanwhile Transfigured up yet more Wizarding cameras and Quick Quills from the stray piles of Gooey Golden Stickers and such laying about and were having themselves a field day. Harry noticed Old Sarky’s personal assistant had fled away under cover of the rain of condoms and that the Governor's Board--with the addition of a few new faces, mostly Auror-types--had entirely surrounded Old Sarky and Smyte-Lash. 

Smiling with satisfaction, he stepped forward once more, taking up the Acme Gimmickals Ltd brochure he’d kept aside just for this final, killing blow. 

“Yes, indeed,” Harry said very loudly and clearly over the din of chairs clattering to the floor and general pandemonium erupting everywhere. “Good Witches and Wizards, may I have your attention? Your attention, please!” 

Scattered heads turned to face him, here and there, most of them flushed and some very pinched and po-faced. The Slyfferdors were the only ones who really settled down and assumed a respectful listening attitude; their elders were far less polite. In fact, there were signs of definite scrum over in one far corner and near the exit Old Sarky’s PA was at last being nabbed by the Aurors in his Animagus form, which seemed to be a species of small South American house lizard.

“ **Ah-tenn-shun!** One. Last. Item,” Harry shouted, unfazed, the Sonorus Charm making his voice absolutely deafening, even enough to cover the sounds of the ongoing onslaught of Shrunken sex toys cascading to the hardwood floors. “Er, thank you,” he added, when the babble of acrimonious and excited voices subsided sufficient to be heard without shouting. 

“Well?” One of the testier old bodies spoke up irritably. “You wanted our attention and now you’ve gotten it, Professor Potter. Go on, then.” 

“Right. As I was saying, and especially to our Seventh Year students.”

“Um...Yes, Professor Potter?” returned a very small voice, from a student fully hidden behind a pile of stacked condom packets. “We’re listening.” 

“So you are. Brilliant.” 

Harry waved the glossy catalog, flapping it about so that it could not fail to draw the eye. 

“As it currently stands and per the Owl Headmistress McGonigall received from our Board, for only a mere thousand or so Galleons a month, class, the Ministry Education Fund will keep you all swimming in the appropriate Gimmickals for your shagging success! And furthermore, it won’t be only in your Sexual Relations lectures you’ll be seeing Gimmickals--it’ll be in every class you attend here at Hogwarts!”

“Brill!” “Scrummy!” and various small cheers resounded at that news. “Hip, hip!” 

“However.” 

Harry shook his head sadly, dropping the catalogue back upon his lectern with a thump. 

“This means that, of course, you shan’t be receiving any of the new brooms that were needed for Quidditch and our Choir will need be disbanded--Gimmickals don’t just grow on trees, you know?” He smiled round at the various Whingey Parents he’d made certain to include, making eye contact with each one of them. “But buck up, students. I’m certain your families will agree this is a necessary expense, right? These innovative methods of rewarding learning are so crucial, aren’t they?”

The quiet that had been so grudgingly acceded at Harry’s request gathered a sullen strength, as people all around the room exchanged glances and started shaking their heads and frowning. 

“Oh, right!” Harry chirped cheerfully, blandly ignoring the downcast faces of the Slyfferdors. “I almost forgot to mention, but I’ll have to ask you all to forgo your plans for our Hogwarts Valentine’s Day Dance, as it will also need to be cancelled.” He grimaced comically, raising his hands in a ‘what can you do?’ sort of gesture. “For we shan’t be able to afford the expense with this new budget adjustment. There will also be no further field trips this year for your Muggle Studies class and all Potions ingredients will be strictly rationed.”

A faint sob was heard, but Harry barrelled on, as if nothing could possibly be the matter and all was well and normal; business as usual.

“Well! I think that’s it, at least for me. Any questions? No? Thank you all for being present, parents and Members of the Board and the Press; exit is to the rear, everyone. Please proceed quickly and calmly to your outside Apparation Points. Unfortunately we cannot offer you a Reception Tea, given the circumstances. Class, you are also dismissed. Please remember to read chapters one through three of the Hogwarts Sexual Relations Manual you have before you and then present me with a foot of parchment on the Merpeople and the Centaurs on Thursday. Oh, and do take all your collected Gimmickals with you and clean up any discard rubbers, will you? We don’t want to make more work for the staff, right? Right! Carry on!” 

Harry gave a little half bow and a wave and backed away from his lectern one last time. He stood calmly waiting a little ways behind it, having thoughtfully set up a Personal Perimeter Shield charm with a flick of his wand and a whispered word. Casually he looked about him, well aware the other members of his team were also observing the goings-on in his classroom from their hidden vantage points, as was Headmistress McGonagall, who’d yet to make an obvious appearance. 

He bit his lips to hide a grin; things were shaping up nicely as the ramifications of his speech truly sunk in and more and more of the people present were looking pretty well brassed off. Some were even a little weepy. 


	7. Wednesday (Part Two)

“No! No, no and **no**! I did _not_ just hear him say that! I can’t _afford_ to buy my own ingredients for Potions! D’you even _know_ how much eye-of-newt costs these days? My Mum’s going to _murder_ me when I tell her!” 

“B-But, but, but, Professor Potter! You can’t! A whole foot of parchment in just two days? And what about all these weird things you’ve gone and given us? Do we--do we keep them?” 

Voices, voices were to be heard everywhere in the room, all of them protesting. 

“He cannot possibly be serious, Maudie!” 

The two elderly Witches had sobered up entirely, and were terribly grim as they crammed their bulging hats back onto their buns. 

“No, no, dearie," one of them cooed to the other, nodding wisely. "He’s Harry Potter, isn't he? He must be joking us all, yanking on our broom bristles...erm, mustn’t he? It’s all just a great prank he’s pulling on the Governor's, trust me. Remember _Witch Weekly_ said he’s got such a wonderful sense of humour about him? Mayhap this is a sample, luv.”

"Well." The other looked very doubtful. "If you say so..."

The Slyfferdors and the Whingies, and even the onlookers and a few of the Press who were alumni, meanwhile, were all a'twitter. 

“Merlin’s frigging knickers, that’s--that’s--that can’t be right?" exclaimed a Slyff. "Just ended, all of it? Where’s the fun in that?” 

“Bloody **Merlin** , _why_ would the Governors even _think_ to cancel _Quidditch_ in the first place?" another lamented. "For they’ve as good as, haven't they? Taking away our new brooms like that! How are we supposed to play _**now**_?” 

The eye of the public swiveled wildly askance at Harry, subjecting him to any number of glares, huffs, snorts, teeth-gnashings, arm-crossings and poutings. Even some shouting, most particularly from the very front and sides of the gathering, where the students clustered about their assigned workstations and the parents buffered their straggly, shifting edges.

“Now, wait just a bloody moment, young man! You cannot just cancel the Valentine’s Day Dance!”

One parent stood up instantly and shook a miniature dildo at Harry furiously.

“Here, now! My son’s been waiting all bloody year for that silly dance! I’ll not allow you to just up and do away with it, Saviour or no Saviour, d'you hear me?” 

“Whaaat?! No Quidditch? Without Quidditch, there’s no meaning to life!” groaned a slumping, sad-eyed student illegally sporting a Puddlemere t-shirt beneath his robes, and several others about him moaned in sympathy, patting them on the back. “What’s _even_ the point of it all?" they demanded of no one in particular, shaking a fist at the last of the magical Sheaths From the Sky. "Merlin! A pox on this shite! I may as well go jump off the Astronomy Tower, right?” 

“No _singing_? But I like our singing!" came a subdued chorus from the other side of Harry's podium. "But our robes--we needed new ones--the competition--oh! Oh, no! There’s not one anymore, is there? It’s all cancelled; everything’s cancelled!”

“This is terrible, Professor Potter,” a fierce-eyed Griff protested stridently, beetle-browed and intensely serious. “It's not fair of you, Prof! How can you even stand for it? I don’t want bloody gold stars like a baby and sugar quills and pissing wee bottles of lube--I want my trip to Muggle London we were promised and our Dance and to be able to cheer my House in Quidditch!” 

"Me too!" 

"And me!"

"Professor!" 

“Yes, yes,” Harry agreed affably, shrugging his shoulders in an empathetic gesture, yet carefully maintaining his safe distance from the milling crowd. "Now, now."

Not a soul seemed to hear him. Sighing and rolling his eyes, he tapped his wand to his throat and tried again. After all, even with excellent acoustics, this was still quite the uproar. 

" **YES, YES. NOW, NOW**. Ahem. Everyone, simmer down, _do_."

An immediate silence fell, as everyone craned their necks and leant forward to hear what he had to say.

“Now, I do understand you’re a bit disappointed, students, but that’s just how it is. Oh, and Mr Weebover? I’m ever so sorry, but you’ll have to take your complaint up with the Governor’s Board. Unfortunately faculty and staff here at Hogwarts are not in charge of the General Budget and we have no control over sudden changes in funds allocations such as this one. I believe there’s a form you can file, down at the Ministry office.”

But it was not reassuring, not at all.

“Well, I’ll not have it!” Mr Weebover stomped his foot. “Head of the Board, is it? Bloody arse is right over there, by the door. I’m going to go tell him a thing or two, this instant! Bloody Board’s not getting away with this, not on my watch! Just you wait and see what my legal counsel has to say about this nonsense!” 

“Oh--me, too!” 

“And _me_! Wait up! I’ll have their hides for this outrage, see if I don’t!”

As one, and rather in the manner of the Giant Squid preparing for the odd foray onto the Lake shore in search of a snack, the motley horde began a general sort of threatening movement in the direction of the door, where the majority of the Ministry Education official types were stood, tense and apprehensive-looking, several stroking at their beards and mustachios for reassurance. Some of the poor Slyfferdors were stifling sobs and all seemed to be rather stunned at their beloved Professor's revelations. The situation was, in two words, minor chaos. 

Harry smiled. A tiny eruption of sudden activity occurred just in front of his lectern, scattering miscellaneous Shrunken sex toys and gold-foil wrapped condom packets everywhere.

“Hoo! Whee! Come along, Maudie, step lively! We must think of the children!” 

The elderly Witches heaved themselves out of their seats with a series of martial creaks and groans, and set their hats properly, withdrawing rather wickedly long hatpins as they went. 

“Too right! You have hold his collar, dearie--I’ll be going straight for the earlobe!” 

Maudie and her mate flung themselves headfirst into the throng, which showed no signs of calming. The noise level was rising accordingly, amplified by his and Draco's Omni Auditum. 

Harry snickered, gaze flickering about his audience, but always returning to the rear of the classroom, where the door had rather mysteriously cracked open, though it had been firmly shut previously.

With a renewed and rolling surge the students and parents flowed toward the exit, which was already piled thick with various bodies in assorted stages of attempted escape. But escape was impossible as Headmistress McGonagall had finally made her appearance. 

Harry, immensely satisfied with all that was going forward, edged even further back from his station at his lectern, redoubling his personal protection charm for good measure. He felt the warm wash of a second, even stronger shielding spell settling over him, and snuck a glance back over his shoulder, face caught betwixt a scowl and a smile.

"Wha--? You!" 

“It’s going superbly, I think,” Draco murmured from just behind him, bending his head low to Harry’s ear. He'd appeared silently, his shoes making no sound on the polished floor of the podium area. “Hmm. You know if I’d my druthers you’d be bent over the back of your own bloody desk, right now, don’t you? You were fucking brilliant, Harry--I so want to snog the living daylights out of you right now.” 

“Oh! Fuck, never mind that, whatever are you doing out here?” Harry whispered frantically, doing his best to shift sufficiently over and magically appear much taller and broader than he really was, all in a vain effort to hide the unmistakably elegant figure of Healer Malfoy from whomsoever might be watching. “Get back the bloody Booth, will you? You can't be seen, remember? They’ll hex you to pieces if they think you had anything to do with this!” 

“Can’t,” Draco said simply, shrugging philosophically. “Hermione’s spell failed. She had to jam the poor thing's workings to even stuff us all in there in the first place, you know. It’s limited to one person, remember? The rest of them are all hiding round the back of it, don’t worry. No one will see.” 

“Well, use a damned Notice-Me-Not or something!” Harry ordered sharply. “We can’t have you seen up here with me, not bloody now at least! Have some sense, git!” 

“No fear, but alright. If it makes you happy, Harry.” Nodding amiably, Draco went through the motions, instantly shading into an indistinct and impossible-to-focus-on blob stationed just at Harry’s one heel. He slid a warm arm about Harry’s waist, making sure to tuck it up beneath the fold of Harry’s professorial robes, and gave him a quick comforting squeeze. “Besides, no one’s going to be looking at _me_ , love. You, either; not now, at least. McGonagall’s about to let loose, see?” 

And she was.

And she did! 

With an ear-cracking Muffliato spell she silenced the milling clots of people surrounding the exit and glared at them all very ferociously, starting with the Governors Members and Old Sarky and moving on to the poor PA--still sporting a limp lizard tail and very woeful expression--the Whingey Parents, the unruly students, the pestering Press and finally the Aurors, who were manfully attempting to shift the awkwardly Petrified persons of Sarkwright Selwyn and G Ploughman Smyte-Lash through the exit.

"Oooh!" Harry cackled. "This is going to be bloody fecking brilliant, I just know it!" 

And so began the final phase of Harry and Draco's great plan to be rid of the bloody Gimmickals, and with a clap of quiet so loud it resounded like thunder! 

All eyes, every one in the room, turned unerringly to the Headmistress of Hogwarts, who was quite clearly in a most monstrous strop. 

“What,” she demanded, in her best starchy Headmistress Voice, “is the meaning of this? Archibald, explain this debacle to me, this instant!” 

Archibald wilted instantly and gawped at her rather gamely, pop-eyed and whuffling through his walrus mustache, but nothing was actually to be heard from the man's mouth, due to the all-encompassing Muffliato. 

“Never mind that, Archibald!”

McGonagall narrowed her eyes, impaling him on the spot.

“I know full well you have not the slightest bit of control of that blighter Selwyn. Never have and never will, pusillanimous excuse for an overseer of student welfare you are! Not much of an Order of the Phoenix member either, Archie! I told you ages ago you should have turned him over to the Aurors, did I not? For harbouring and abetting that Deatheater son of his! But no! You didn’t lift a finger, Archibald, not even a twitch. And now he’s gone and committed what amounts to fraud and larceny against our venerable institution of Hogwarts. What have you to say for yourself, sir?”

Archibald said nothing because of course he could _not_. But he was visibly in the midst of a piteous whimper, trembling and cowering back from the merciless figure of Minerva McGonigall.

Harry and Draco exchanged gleeful glances. 

“Nothing?" Minerva demanded, perhaps unreasonably given the circumstances. "Hah! Not even an apology? Hmph! Very well, Archibald,” she tutted, twitching her wand just sufficient to finally release the poor Wizard from his mufflement. “Be off with you; outside at once! I’ve no doubt you’ll be finding yourself explaining all this to Wizengamot sooner rather than later!” 

She glanced behind her, where Professor Flitwick was just then to be discerned, peeping round the edge of the cracked-open exit doors. 

"Filius, please do escort him, will you? I'm sure the Aurors are wondering why the delay. Now! As to the rest of you miserable lot!" 

With no pause in stride, McGonagall spun to face the assorted Press, eyes glittering and face so pinched and angular-edged with vivid displeasure one could have used it to slice nanometre-wide slices of shrivelfigs. 

"You!"

The entire lot of them, however, had been so absolutely enthralled by McGonagall’s doings they’d apparently quite forgotten what _they_ did for a living: not a single Quik Quill was taking notes and all their Transfigured condom cameras dangled uselessly from their collective fingers. They but gaped and gawked and did not a jot of proper reporting. 

“You there,” McGonagall abruptly addressed them, her tone absolutely searing; several of the younger ones jumped and startled. “All of you, attend to me at once! I should hope you would all cease standing about like great goggling goosecaps and be about your business: recording this devious attempt by Mr Sawkwright Selwyn, Member of the Ministry Education Fund Advisory, and his associate Mr G Ploughman Smyte-Lash, of Acme Gimmickals, Ltd, Address UnPlottable, to defraud and defund our children’s education here at Hogwarts. The Public needs to know. To work! And don’t make me remind you again!”

“Merlin!” Harry giggled, bringing his hand up to hide the grin that refused to stay buttoned-down. “She’s on a proper tear, isn’t she? A royal one!” 

“No more than they all deserve, Harry, pissing off like that and not reporting a word of it of it all,” Draco replied calmly, though Harry detected an admiring note in his voice. “She’ll have them all serving detention next, polishing cauldrons and trophies till all hours.” 

“Oh, I do hope so. Look, she’s got to the Whingers already. Hush, listen!” 

Indeed, she had.

Ah, the Whingers. There weren’t many of them present; Harry had limited himself to specially inviting only a few of the most troublesome ones. Mostly he and the rest of the faculty had no issue at all with Hogwarts parents, and would gladly make time to meet with them and discuss any problems or questions they had. It was actually something McGonagall actively encouraged and Harry even found himself enjoying it, especially with the ones who were very genuinely advocates for their charges. Especially the parents of the Firsties, and Harry--being a very involved godfather himself--could quite empathize with that! 

But there were a few even Harry in his most Hufflepuff mood could barely tolerate. These were the inveterate complainers, the stirrers-of-trouble-and-discontent, the impossibly demanding ones who had not a clue about proper instructional methods and even less interest in understanding how their own children fared in a classroom. No, their primary interest seemed to lay in making a name for themselves in the papers as being the Guardians of a Proper Hogwarts Education, as they liked to call it. 

They protested vehemently every single improvement McGonagall and the faculty had implemented over the years, from labelling the loos as just 'loos' to providing accessible flying substitutes for those children who weren’t easily able to straddle a broomstick. They would come to Hogwarts unannounced and uninvited and stroll through Pince’s Library, carelessly ripping the newer fictional novels and teen-oriented publications she’d added from the shelves and attempting to Incendio them; they would descend upon Quidditch matches and loudly harass each other’s old Houses, shouting out nasty old slurs and rudely flouting the Unity Rules McGonagall strictly enforced. And finally--and this was by far the worst, at least in Harry's opinion--they really seemed to have very little actual care for their own children, and certainly not for the children of others. It churned Harry’s stomach, rather, especially as quite a number had recently been touting Gimmickals as the ‘magical solution to all that was wrong with Hogwarts’. 

In Harry’s opinion, there was rather a lot more ‘right’ about Hogwarts these days than there’d been for decades upon decades, and these acrimonious detractors could bloody well stuff it. But there was rather more to it than merely that bit, as he and Draco--and Ron and Dawlish--had discovered very recently.

In Ron's opinion, as an Auror, the Whingers were not only criminally dickish, they were in fact, actual real live criminals, engaged in an illegal multi-level marketing scheme that had suckered every single one of Britain's Wizarding kinderschools and had even extended abroad, affecting all the continents and Wizarding communities Smyte-Lash had managed to weasel himself into. Old Sarky, as it happened, was not the only influential Wizard who'd invested in and enabled this species of fraud. 

“As for _you_.” 

McGonagall stared down Mr Weebover, the Wallproppers, the fainting Witch and especially one Mr Prunus Pfartthom, the ad hoc leader of the Whinger’s nebulous ‘Make Our Hogwarts Perfectly Proper’ group. They fell still, ceasing their efforts to depart, utterly affixed by the sheer weight of disgusted disapprobation she managed to convey to them. 

“A sad and troubling matter has been brought to my attention, just recently. You are all part and party to this act of embezzlement. You are just as responsible for this attack on our children’s education as Selwyn and his criminally minded crony ever was.”

“What? How dare you?” Pfartthom sputtered--or tried his best to, but Headmistress's Muffliato held strongly. "I never!"

He mouthed it instead and only managed to appear massively foolish instead. The Whingers gathered round him all immediately made as if to sullenly slink away. Panicking, he reached out and grabbed at their elbows and sleeves, preventing them. 

“For you,” McGonagall carried on, inexorable as a tsunami, and again brought the group to a halt, by means of an industrial-grade glare and a business-like Freezing Jinx. “You have all supported most stridently the use of these Acme products. Indeed, I am given to understand that most of you here today make a very nice living from hawking them to our Wizarding primary schools. You even go about recruiting others to sell yet more for you--despite knowing full well that they are not and have never been a reliable factor in the inspiration of children to actually learn! Pah! Faugh! Gimmickals Gooey Golden Stars will never replace a proper course of instruction, hand’s on application of knowledge, sufficient practise and well-considered revisement. And yet you knowingly influenced our good Governor's Board into investing far too deeply in this fool’s endeavour!”

“Boo-yah!” Harry cheered her on quietly, his eyes alight with excitement. “Deus ex McGonagall, right, Draco?” 

“Indeed! She's fucking superb,” Draco agreed emphatically. "Wish we'd had her instead of bloody old Dumbledore." 

“How many Galleons have you stolen, straight from the hands of your own children and others? How many other learning opportunities have you denied the Wizarding students of Britain through your naked greed? Shame! Shame on all of you. Well!"

She straightened her tartan hat with an especially vicious tug.

"That has ended, as of now! No more will any one of you ever be allowed to nefariously profit off your own children's education--nor to devalue it with your Fool's Gold. Now, all of you, be gone at once, out of this classroom and out of my school! There is further official Auror business to attend to here and you are vastly in my way! Go on!” 

With a flourish of her wand, McGonagall released the Whinger's from her Muffliato and immediately they lived straight up to their nickname, milling about and clamouring on over the unfairness of it all, being called out like that, and by some nosy school teacher, and how they were just doing what anyone else would've have done, and rather generally pointing fingers at Pfartthom and blaming the whole of it on him. 

"Enough, I said!" roared McGonagall, her patience clearly worn to threads as the group made no move to exit Harry's classroom, being far too busy tattling on each other. "Or I will be forced to--" 

“Ahem! Yes, indeed,” Maudie stated severely and loudly, abruptly straightening up out of her old-lady hunch and gaining an impressive several inches of muscled bulk in the process. She waved her hatpin--and also her wand at the Whingers. "Right, enough! That's our queue, love! Oi, Minnie! Just coming, luv! Stand down, do!"

She elbowed her way forward through the crowd of Whinger’s, apparently completely unaffected by McGonagall’s spell. 

“Not just Auror, either; ta, Minnie, for the chance to nab a few of our Most Wanted red-handed. Now! Let me introduce myself, folks," she said cheerily to the Whingers, grinning in a very crocodilian manner. " _I_ happen to represent the International Magical Malfeasance Investigation Organization, or IMMIO, as does my friend here. That's 'I-Meow', as we Senior Investigators on the Force like to call it, heehee." She twinkled drolly at them, but somehow it wasn't a particularly kindly chuckle. "Right, then. You lot all need to move along to the Apparation Point this instant. Official statements will be had by our agents from you there; your release will be dependent on the Organization’s advisement. Oh, dearie? Will you take up the rear for me? Wouldn't want to lose anyone along the way, would we now?” 

“With pleasure,” her elderly friend replied grimly, also whipping a rapier-length hatpin from her towering grey bun and brandishing it with relish. She, too, had shed her guise of gormless old age with alacrity and was actively giving a few laggard Whingers the nudge. “Here, now. Move along, cauldron scum; right this way. The Organization is very interested in learning every single detail of your finances, believe me. Not that we don't all know enough already to have most of you dangling from a gibbet. **Harch**!” 

“Ahem. Thank you, Maudie,” McGonagall nodded regally, stepping back out of the way. “It’s always my pleasure to assist MMIO. Carry on, do, and take them all off. It’s a pox on my poor eyes to look upon any of them, knowing of their fiendish plans to self-benefit from our student funds.”

"No worries, Minnie, dear," Maudie smiled, regally bobbing her towering hat as she trotted off, the cowed Wallproppers, the fainting Witch, Pfartthom, Weebovere and the rest falling reluctantly into a straggly sullen line behind her "I-Meow is on the case!" 

“Look at McGonagall's face, will you? Merlin, but she’s magnificent, isn’t she?” Harry whispered over his shoulder, watching the cringing Whingers being led away in ignominy. “I mean, I’ve known her nearly all my life, but still!” 

“A veritable juggernaut; a force majeure of Nature herself,” Draco murmured, dropping a kiss upon Harry’s hair. “So glad I had some small ability in Transfiguration, back in the day. I’d’ve hated to always and forever be in her Dark grimoires! Bad enough when she caught me out those few times she did, you know?”

“Hah!” Harry scoffed softly. “Like _she_ didn’t always know when you were up to something, idiot. She’s a bloody cat Animagus--and cats know everything!” 

“Everything they consider worth knowing, yes,” Draco nodded. “Fortunately _I_ didn’t often rate. Anyway, what’s she doing now? Is that the _Aurors_ she’s ripping up?” 

“Appears to be, “ Harry nodded, straining to hear. "Don't know why, though."

As she’d gone along through the crowd, McGonagall had been selectively lifting the Grand Muffliato she’d cast and now it was clear that she’d finally freed Selwyn, Smyte-Lash and the Aurors who had taken hold of them.

"Shhh! I can't hear!” Harry ordered as McGonagall ripped into the hides of the several Aurors Ron had thoughtfully insinuated into the audience earlier. "Poor things. Rookies, all of them."

But the young Aurors, who were very much aware their Chief was somewhere present and observing, merely took their sharp admonishment to be about the removal of ‘these disgraceful stains upon the very fabric of Hogwarts!’, hastily took up the still-rigid and Incarcerous’d bodies of Selwyn and his accomplice and scarpered off promptly with nary a peep in their own defense. 

“Well, now,” Harry sighed, leaning comfortably back against Draco’s shoulder, eyes wandered about the now nearly empty classroom. A few work tables had been left overturned and the floor was still littered with glitter and rubbers. “Must say. That was excellent. All of it, really. Just bloody perfect.” 

“It was,” Draco smiled, quickly dispelling his Notice-Me-Not. “You, especially, though. And now I think you’d better go say hullo to your mates, Harry, before they go. Hermione was quite concerned about the state of the Booth’s wards after she, uh, creatively reset them. Ron’s champing the bit, rather, too. He’s here only unofficially, you remember.” 

“I’d imagine he is,” Harry grinned, turning round and leading the way to the back of the Privacy Booth. “He’s got work to do.” 

“One moment!” McGonagall’s voice called out peremptorily, halting them in their tracks. “If you please? Boys!” 

“Oops!” Harry gulped, spinning back round again so quickly he nearly collided with Draco’s chest. “Are we going to catch it, d’you think? I knew she’d see you there behind me, Draco. You were supposed to stay hidden!” 

“Merlin, I hope not,” Draco said fervently, plastering a wide and winsome smile on his tired face as McGonagall came up to them. “I’m too damn shattered to polish much of anything right now.” 

“Ahhh, boys,” McGonagall said in a tone of great approval, “I must tell you both, you have served Hogwarts very well, this day. I cannot thank you sufficiently, I feel. Harry, you were commanding, up there at your lectern, all through. Draco, your scheme was pure genius.”

“Oh! Well…” Harry flushed, ducking his chin and regarding the tips of his shoes. “It wasn’t really--”

“Of course it was; don’t be a nodcock, Harry,” McGonagall chided. “You performed most exceedingly well. You too, Draco. This is a great service to both Hogwarts and the Ministry. Now, however, I believe it behooves me to call all the students together and give them a speech of reassurance. I imagine there’s already been tears shed over the loss of the Valentine’s Dance and so forth, back in the dorms, and I must put a stop to that nonsense immediately. No point in allowing misery to go spreading.” 

“Oh!” Draco exclaimed. “Right. Should we come along with you, then? I mean, we can,” he added, side-eyeing Harry’s tell-tale twitch. “It’s, ah, no trouble, really. No trouble at all, ma’am.” 

“Not at all, dear boy,” McGonagall replied kindly, a knowing look in her eye. “Poppy, Filius and I are quite capable of calming a group of unsettled students all on our own, I assure you. Certainly we have had sufficient practise. Do you not agree?” 

“Yes!” Harry made haste to nod. “You have, yes; I mean _I_ quite clearly recall any number of occasions when you were quite, quite calming--ah! Never mind that, right? Look, think I’ll just go, then--” he cast a quick glance over his shoulder--”and, um, make sure there’s no damage to the Booth, shall I? And Draco here can help me with that. Right, Draco?” 

“Of course,” Draco said smoothly, half-bowing at McGonagall and taking up Harry’s arm. He eased them a step backwards, still smiling. “Absolutely. This instant. Good day, ma’am. I’m sure the students will all feel better in a trice, as soon as you speak to them.” 

“I’m sure they shall. They’re very resilient, children. You two are free for the remainder of the day; I’ll make your excuses,” McGonagall informed them. “And don’t be concerned, Harry, with your Hallway Duties this evening. The Prefects will have it well in hand. I’ve already advised them.” 

“Er, thanks!” Harry said brightly, having forgotten all about his Hallway Duties in the excitement. “That’s super, Minerva. Cheers! Come on, Draco; no time to waste! Booth is very delicate, really, isn’t it? Let’s check the back.”

Waving his hand cheerily, he and Draco dashed off, heading to the far reaches of the classroom where the Privacy Booth stood all by itself. Frowning, Harry noticed its velvet curtains were smoking slightly when they reached it. 

“Ugh!” he said, waving his wand at them to cool them down. “What the fuck, Draco? She really broke it, then?” 

“Yes. I mentioned, Harry,” Draco replied sedately. 

“Mate!” Ron called out, popping out into view from the rear end of the abused Booth. “Finally! What took you so long? I’ve paperwork waiting, you know? Miles of it, likely. Brill job up there, by the way. Bloody amazing, you were. I said the same to Hermione, just now.” 

“Harry!” Hermione whipped round the other corner, George trailing behind her and grinning like anything. “Oh, Harry, you were wonderful! I was so proud of you, facing them all down like that. But I’m afraid I’ve broken your Booth, and I don’t know quite how to fix it!” 

She flung herself at him for a quick, hard embrace and immediately drew back to stare up at him, worry in her fine brown eyes. 

“It wouldn’t let us all in, at first, you know? I had to, well, Do Things, right? And I’m a little worried I shan’t be able to properly undo them!” 

“It’s alright, Hermione; don’t worry about it,” Harry said soothingly. “I’ve the Manual here somewhere and Draco’s ace at fixing up cabinet-y things. No worries. Hey, George! Loved that cloud of condoms coming down! They were everywhere; Mr Weebover nearly had a fit!” 

“Oi, Potter!” Draco scowled. “Watch what you say!” 

“Tosh, you know I meant it nicely,” Harry laughed. “And you are good at fixing things up; always have been. George, _I_ thought you were brilliant back here, all of you, doing all that timed casting.” He gazed around at Draco and his friends with admiration. “And you barely had any time to practise it, did you?” 

“Harry!” George made a flourish. “Ta, but it was a nothing--a mere trifle. But you! Star of the show, you were. Never been so impressed with you. Well, maybe I have, a few times before, now and again,” he chuckled, “but this one was top-notch. Bloody good on you, Harry. Nothing like the Golden Guy telling it like it is and making it stick, yeah? Oh, and Draco? Did you tell Harry about what we’ve done with all the extras yet?” 

He turned to clap Draco on the back, winking at Harry. 

“Never let a good rubber go to waste, right? Trust this guy to always have a decent scheme. Make sure you ask about it later, do. No point in tossing them, really. Anyway, I must dash. Angelina’s going to have me sleeping in the alley outside the shop if I don’t go back this instant and tell her absolutely everything that happened. She said she’ll have our Pensieve all ready. Ta, Ron, Hermione, Draco, for all your help. See you all Sunday--toodles!”

So saying, he sprinted off, making excellent time through the classroom and out the thankfully completely clear exit, doubtless on his way to the Apparation Point. 

“And, sorry, but I’ve got to go, too, Harry,” Ron said, regret clear in his voice. “Heaps and heaps of paperwork yet. Minister’s waiting on the official arrest of Sawkright and I’ve the bloody American Wizarding Embassy to meet with about what to do with old Smyte-Lash, as he’s not bloody well going to be given leave to bolt. And Maudie from MMIO--McGonagall’s mate? You know how she is, and she’ll doubtless have all the offshore ledgers for Gimmickals by now, pulled from the banks. The Goblins have been amazingly cooperative, you know.” 

“That’s because it’s you and not me that’s Chief Auror, mate,” Harry nodded wisely. “What did I tell you? So, so much better, this way. Knew you’d be brilliant at it; so did Shackles. Alright, then. We’ll see you for supper at your mum and dad’s, alright? Don’t fret too much, Hermione,” he grinned. “Draco will fix it, I guarantee.” 

“Of course I shall,” Draco chimed in, accepting the quick kiss on the cheek Hermione bestowed him with good grace. “Go on with you, then. Harry and I are about finished with this day anyway. I’m longing for a good long hot shower and cuppa before bed.” 

“That’s right!” Hermione exclaimed. “Tomorrow’s the real first class for you two, isn’t it? The first real, honest to Merlin class on Wizarding sex education at Hogwarts, ever! Well, I certainly hope it’s nowhere near as barmy as today’s been,” she laughed. “at least for Rosie's sake, when it's her turn. Alright, then, we’re off. Ron, I’ll see you at home sometime tonight, I hope?” 

“Count on it, love,” Ron said firmly, giving her a smooch. “That’s what Junior Aurors are for--filling out paperwork.” He grasped Harry’s hand firmly and shook it, pulling him into half hug. “Again, mate--you were stone cold brilliant. Stage has lost itself a fine actor when you plumped on teaching the kiddos after leaving Aurors.” He shook his head, pulling a sad face. “It’s a great loss to us all, really. I can see you in a dress; in fact, I believe I have, actually. Quite fetching, it was.” 

“Shut it!” Harry snickered. “And go already! I cannot wait to see the front page of the Prophet tomorrow morning. It had better blaring about the unexpected downfall of Sarky Selwyn.” 

“No worries,” Ron nodded sharply. “It’s all in hand. Oh...you know, I was just thinking,” he added thoughtfully, turning back around and looking terribly pensive. “About that manual you’ve pulled together, Malfoy.” 

“Oh, here it comes,” Draco groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes. “Yes, Weasley, what about it?” 

“Well. It’s called the _Hogwarts Sexual Relations Manual_ , isn't it?” Ron smiled. “And you know how teenageers are, of course. What are the odds they’ll be renaming it? If they haven’t already?” 

“Bloody hell, Weasley,” Draco pleaded. “Just land the fucking blow, will you? What do _you_ think they’ll be calling it, then? The product of all my hard work and effort as a professional Healer?” 

“ _HogShag._ ” Ron grinned like a Banshee, very toothy and all that. “It’s _The HogShag Book_ , of course. Right, Harry? I mean, wouldn’t _we_ have called it that, back in the day? I know _I_ would’ve.” 

“Git!” Harry burst out, cracking up into laughter. “You royal berk, Ron! That’s so-- _so_ \--”

“Mean!” Hermione scolded, folding her arms across her chest and frowning heavily. “Ron, you apologize to Draco right now. That’s not nice of you, not when he spent all that time on it.” 

“That's just so fucking spot _on_ , is what, you wanker,” Draco finished Harry’s sentence, grinning reluctantly before breaking into a little snicker. “Right, then. Point, Ronald,” he allowed, narrowing his eyes meaningfully. “But don’t forget I’ll be owing you one for it, come Sunday Quidditch. And maybe telling your mum, too. For shame, treating a Hogwarts textbook as a joke. How juvenile, Weasley.” 

“Bloody well no!” Ron protested, throwing up his hands and flapping them. “Don’t tell my mum, Draco. Now look, see, Hermione? That's actually being mean, right there. He’s threatening me.” 

“Honestly!” Hermione blew out her breath so hard her messy bun came half undone. “Boys!” 

“Okay, okay, that’s enough, you two,” Harry intervened, laughing only a little bit. “Save it for Sunday scrum, alright? You’re late, mate, and Draco and I are bone-shattered. Go home, Hermione, alright? If the kids here do end up calling it by that terrible name, then there’s not much we can do about it, is there? Besides, it’s a bit--well. _I_ rather like it. Actually. Hog _Shag._ Has a bit of a rhythm to it, you know? 'HogShag _Man_.” He chuckled, rolling his eyes. “ _Hog_ ShagMan. Bit catchy, isn't it?”

“You _would_ , Potter,” Draco snorted, helping himself to Harry’s arm and beginning a slow, polite but determined backwards march towards the doorway. “Right, step to, you. We’ll sort the bloody bollocks’d Booth in the morning. Ron, Hermione? You two have a most excellent evening and thanks so much for your help with this. We would never have been able to manage without you.” 

“It’s barely midday, Draco!” Hermione was scandalized. “What are you even talking about, an ‘excellent evening’?” 

“Yes, well.” Draco sighed heavily, urging Harry along. “I don’t know if you realized, but we’ve been flying flat out since I came down Friday. Uncovering an international-level marketing embezzlement scheme and then stopping it in its tracks is fecking hard work, you know. Plus also, preparing for the actual teaching of the subject.” He pointed at the Booth. “That, right there? Was four solid hours of Charms work. Another hour or so tomorrow, likely, unjamming it, I imagine. Whatever Undoing you did, Hermione, I'm sure it was thorough.” 

“Bleagh,” Ron nodded sympathetically. “Sounds ghastly, mate.”

“Oh, I see,” Hermione nodded guiltily. “Er, sorry about that, Draco. Off to bed then, you two. We shan’t keep you.” 

“Oi, and my workday’s only just beginning,” Ron groaned, pulling a long face. “But at least it’ll be so worth it,” he added, brightening. “Not every day we Aurors have the pleasure of charging a lifelong Wizengamot member with a high felony, right? If you ask me, we should really be trotting in a few more of them on charges. Keep them on their toes, these bloody political types. Can’t say as I care for all this complacency.”

“Too right!” Draco agreed fervently. “And I’d love to help with that laudable goal in any way I may sometime very soon, but right as of now I’m having myself a bloody long kip. And Harry too.” 

“Yes! Come on, then. Stop jabbering away with Ron and maybe we’ll actually manage it,” Harry nodded sternly, taking his turn at steering them toward the exit. “So, right. Cheers, Ron. Cheers, Hermione. See you at Weasley’s!”

“See you, mate!” 

“Bye, Harry! Bye, Draco!” 


	8. Wednesday Evening

It was well after supper had ended, a meal they had partaken of privately in Harry’s quarters, courtesy of Mincie, that Harry set down his own personal copy of the inaugural HogShag Manual and smiled widely over at his companion. 

It was beautifully quiet in Harry’s small drawing room, with faintest odour of newly fallen snow in the air, and the many small diamond-shaped window panes were frosted over on the outside, kissed by the passing chill winds of a Scots winter’s night. The hearth crackled with a cozy little fire, sending up sparks now and again when Draco poked at it and smelling of pine sap, peat and the comforting sense of being warm in the winter. They’d the remains of a tea tray on the occasional table between their two armchairs and he and Draco had been sitting quietly, occupied with their various professional readings, for what seemed like ages. It was blissful, really, especially when compared to all that had gone before. 

“Hmm?” Draco hummed, looking up sharply from his book and lifting an eyebrow. “Alright, Harry?” 

“Quite,” Harry grinned. He tapped a fingertip on the scarlet binding of _HogShagMan_ \--he’d teased Draco in admitting that that really was the perfect nickname for it--and tilted his head curiously. “We make a good team, you and I. This is excellent. First class, really, and I think the students will have a lot of good use of it. But, I was wondering?” 

“What?” 

“How ever did you manage it? I mean, I only told you McGonagall had chosen me to teach MSR a month ago, just after hols started. This is obviously far more than any one person could throw together in a month, Draco, especially when he’s been stuck on night shifts all through!” 

“Oh, that,” Draco nodded. “Well. It’s not just _my_ work, obviously. Alright, I’ll tell you the story, such as it is. You remember how, when I first accepted the position at St Mungo’s, I was assigned a group of peers? They were fresh young Healers, just as I was, and many of us came from overseas. St Mungo’s had lost so many of its Healers whilst Voldemort--”

“Tom Riddle,” Harry interjected firmly. “Not ‘Voldemort’, Draco. He was just another Wizard with bloody stupid ideas, in the end.” 

“Right, him,” Draco smirked. “‘No-Nose’. Anyway, St Mungo’s had to hire any number of, er, ‘imports’, or so the higher-ups called us, and we ended up all mostly rubbing along very well together.” 

“Absolutely,” Harry said. “Good mates of yours, actually.”

“Very,” Draco smiled. “Some of us noticed that St Mungo’s was a bit--er? Shall we say, ‘out of touch’? ‘Behind the times’, even? When it came to the Muggleborns, certainly. When I was at the Academie, we were all required to spend a year of study at the Muggle counterpart, so I had some experience, you see, with regular Muggles, and it was bloody eye-opening, Harry. A real revelation, right? That's not an uncommon practise, either, at this point, and many of the international unis do it. Rather like a 'study abroad', really. So, long story exceptionally short, we’ve all of us newer Healers banded together and come up with trove of various outside resources--including rather a lot of information on shagging--that we then use in practise. Muggleborns and thus Muggle medical research definitely influences that, mainly because we deal with so many. So, it was really sitting there, and I really only had to organize it into something coherent. Thinking of your circumstances, all through, actually. Because I knew that I wanted you to feel as comfortable as possible, being a Wizard, even though you weren't initially raised as one.”

“Oh!” Harry acclaimed. “I see! That’s brilliant, Draco. And thoughtful, darling; thank you. No wonder it’s so...very...complete, this.” He patted the cover again, and then opened it up to the publication page, where he’d noted he and Draco had been attributed as co-authors, but below that, in a smaller font, was a further acknowledgement, comprised of quite a few of the names of Draco’s good friends from St Mungo’s. “Now I'm really looking, I see them. There’s Prisha and Marjani and Wang Wei, right at the top here. The whole bloody crew from your department, really. All your mates. Plus a few.”

“Well, they’re the ones who helped me with the Booth, too, creating that direct floo to a volunteer Healer, so,” Draco remarked. “Spell Damage sees a lot of teenagers and young adults, Harry.” He shrugged. “Shagging--and all the things that can go wrong with shagging--is a subject we deal with almost every day. Or every night,” he chuckled wryly, “as the case may be.” 

“Okay then, I think we’ll be alright, using this.” Harry set it aside with a happy sigh, and removed his specs to give his eyes a soothing rub. “I’ve definitely learnt a lot from it. From you, too, really.” 

“Really?” Draco looked relieved, leaning over to place his own book down on the table and laying a hand on Harry’s kneecap. “I’m glad. I hesitated, you know, even mentioning it to you. But I was concerned.” 

“You’re always concerned,” Harry said happily, “and I love it. I love it so much, Draco. Never known anything quite like it, that feeling. I mean, Ron and Hermione are fantastic, absolutely, but you! You.” 

He slid out of his armchair and hopped over to perch on Draco’s lap, slinging his arms about him and grinning. 

“You, love, are quite the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I cannot begin to tell you how much better my life is, these days. Cannot even _begin_.” 

“Harry.” Draco grinned up at him, eyes sparkling. “Pot, kettle.” 

“Mmm, it’s good we agree on that, don’t you think?” Harry dropped a kiss upon Draco’s forehead. “Now, come to bed and let’s try agreeing a little more. I, for one, am feeling very agreeable.” 

“You’re on, then,” Draco vowed, tightening his grip and rising up out of his armchair, Harry feeling the ‘ooomph!’ of the Lightening Charm he cast silently as they went. “I, too, am experiencing a swell of amiability. Shall we?” 

“We shall,” Harry laughed. “And we should try that thing in the second to the last section, Positions, on the very last page; the one with the--”

“Merlin, that one?” Draco looked shocked. “That one requires years of yoga, Harry! Fuck no, we’re not doing _that_ one. What, you want us both to end up in hospital?” 

He elbowed his way into their bedroom, scowling and dumped Harry unceremoniously upon the mattress. 

“Well, if not that one, then what about the one two pages before?” Harry asked guilelessly, spreading his arms wide above his head and waving them. “I mean, we’ve the bedposts and the canopy right here, don’t we?” 

“Fucking Hades, Harry,” Draco said sternly, ripping his robe off and shucking his nightgown. He clambered aboard the bed, helpfully removing Harry’s slippers as he went. “We’re not Seekers any longer, alright? How about you take off your joggers and I--” he paused meaningfully, grasping at his mostly erect cock and waggling it jauntily in Harry’s direction--”take this and put it up your sassy arse and then move it in and out for a while? Quickly. Will that work for you?” 

Harry burst out laughing, obligingly shimmying himself out of his ancient old joggers and limp greyish t-shirt, the one that still read ‘-o C-nn-ns!’ faintly across the middle in faded orange script. 

“Huh! Well! If you’re going to be _that_ way about it.”

“I am indeed going to be _that_ way about it,” Draco stated, waggling his dick a little harder and giving it a tug whilst he was at it. “Potter.” 

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to make do with the basics,” Harry giggled, “despite all those advanced lessons. Malfoy.” 

“S’pose you will, won’t you?” Draco growled, falling down and forward and shutting Harry’s mouth in the best possible way ever--with a snog. “Wanker.” 

“Your wanker,” Harry countered, emerging smiling from the snog. “Very much so.”

“Couldn’t ask for better.” Draco winked, grinding his hips against Harry’s arching ones and twiddling his fingers in a very knowledgeable manner. “But let’s make it so you’ll not have to, Harry.” 

“I’m for that,” Harry moaned, “rather. Now, Draco, _please_.” 

“Hmm-mm, Harry. Thought as much.”

“Stuff i--er--oooh, yes, like that! Fuuuuck, yessss.”


	9. Epilogue

Healer Malfoy and Professor Potter together taught an immensely successful inaugural course in Wizarding Sexual Relations over the course of the fortnight Draco was on leave from St Mungo’s. The Seventh Years--specifically the Slyfferdors--instantly rechristened their new textbook ‘ _HogShagMan_ ’, which Draco accepted quite philosophically. Professor Potter was also sometimes referred to as the HogShagMan, which may or may not have been Teddy's idea. Healer Malfoy found that to be deeply hysterical and teased Harry unmercifully. 

The Privacy Booth was a roaring success. Meant to provide an in-classroom retreat for any students who, as Poppy Pomfrey liked to call it, ‘needed a moment’, it also provided for instant floo access to a volunteer Healer should a student have questions Harry didn’t feel qualified to answer, a rather extensive wardrobe with many styles of clothing should there be the wish to experiment, a loo, because of course a loo, a comfortable settee, some nibbles and beverages, and a bookcase packed with a variety of novels, poetry, art and Healer’s guides, both Muggle and Wizarding. Naturally enough, it was spelled to contain only one person at any one time, as neither Draco nor Harry had been born yesterday and McGonagall had made a very specific point of requesting that feature. 

The various guest lecturers Harry invited were also considered rather smashing, both by the older students and by the faculty. Not only were Pomfrey and a few of Draco’s fellow Healers included but so also were the Weird Sisters, and then too Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees. The portrait of deceased Headmaster Snape instilled the fer of Merlin into every student as to the requirement for exactitude in Potion's brewing and Flitwick delighted everyone with a Charm for making knickers fully edible. Finally, there was a brief visit from the famed Newt Scamander, who finally managed to actually fully explain the old Wizarding tales about ‘the Merpeople and the Centaurs’ to Harry’s students in a manner that didn't horrify everyone. 

In fact, Harry was feeling so sanguine about his new assignment, he was able to face the incoming Fourth and Fifth Years in April all on his own--including the newly official teenage Teddy Lupin--feeling fully at ease in his role as resident Shagging Master. 

Which was brilliant, as there were still the odd Gimmickal lying about, kept in a spare cupboard in the classroom, and Teddy’s first act was to sneak out the box and spell the Muggle rubbers into zoo animals, which he and his Hufflepuff partner then Charmed and sent galloping about the classroom, interrupting Harry’s initial lecture and creating no small amount of jocular pandemonium. Naturally enough, he earned himself a detention for it and learnt about the intricacies of polishing Quidditch trophies, same as his godfather and his Cousin Draco had before him, back in the day. 

And, in due course, Old Sarky and his nefarious friend G Ploughman Smyte-Lash were brought to trial, convicted and duly sentenced, and thus removed from both their ill-gotten gains and their positions of power and influence over the Wizarding education system and Hogwarts in particular. Headmistress went about smiling like a kneazle-in-cream for days after that and even had her old mate Maudie down for tea and a lengthy, quite catty natter about the whole business. All the staff breathed a silent sigh of relief when this occurred, as a happy Headmistress made for a happy Hogwarts. Harry was so chuffed he made mention to Draco of a private Healing practice available for purchase in Hogsmeade and they then spent all their summer hols weekends going about the area and looking at houses ample enough to house a growing family. 

Last but not least, it never again rained down condoms upon the students at Hogwarts. Professor Potter expressly forbade it. Though the Slyfferdors always did chatter on about it at their yearly reunions, recalling that moment with great fondness. Really, who could blame them? It was a day that would live vividly in the revised _Hogwarts, A History_ forevermore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please support the author by clicking on the kudos button and leaving a comment below! ♥


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